An End of Darkness
by Blood-Magic
Summary: The sequel to "Because you were waiting". Light and Vincent have been married for ten years. Their domestic life has been enjoyable in that time, but now an ancient sleeping evil has awoken, and it has chosen Light.
1. Chapter 1

_She was dreaming again. This was a new dream, and yet it felt familiar in that peculiar way that only a dream can. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck in alarm, yet she couldn't stop the images unfolding before her..._

For ten years she had gone by the name of Light Valentine, but here in her hazy dream-world she felt like she had been reduced back to Lightning, the cold and distant alter-ego she had built to shield herself from from the crushing terror of life after her parents' death. Lightning had a hard glint in her eye, a firm set to her jaw; her posture was always ready for a fight, and her voice was always forced into a dismissive monotone that hid all her true feelings from the world. Lightning had only one thing in the world worth living for, and that one thing, her sister, had been dead for a very long time. As Light Valentine she still missed Serah, of course she did and she always would, but her life was not empty or meaningless without her. Light had a life: a best friend, a husband, a healthy son, a worthy job, hobbies she enjoyed, and a face that smiled more easily now than it ever had before in her life. She was uncomfortable in her old 'Lightning' skin, and yet that was the costume chosen by her dream theater for tonight's show.

She was in a distinctly eerie dream land this time. Perhaps it was Pulse, but then it might have been Cocoon? The land kept shifting under her feet, here the architecture of Oerba, there the rainforest of Sunleth, then the dusty but ordered streets of Edge, and then the clouded shores of Valhalla, which occasionally shifted into the shoreline at Bodhum or Costa del Sol. The effect was dizzying at best, but Lightning, ever stoic, ever the soldier, kept putting one foot in front of the other, never fearing whether her foot would land on rock or grass or water or rusted metal. Nothing really touched her, and so nothing could harm her.

_Turn around, Lightning! The tiny spark of her conscious mind screamed at her dream-self. But she could not hope to fight the progression of this dream. Her Lightning persona knew where she was going and what to do when she got there. She offered not a single word of explanation, not even a reassuring look back for the benefit of her soul's other half._

Lightning kept jogging through the shifting landscape until finally the world stabilized around her and she stopped in front of the doors of a massive stone cathedral. Bigger and better preserved than the one her conscious mind knew from the Midgar ruins, this incredible church rose up like the face of an impassable cliff. This was the structure, nay the _monument_, around which the entire city of Luxerion had been built.

_Luxerion? The conscious mind of Light Valentine had no idea where that name had come from. Lightning certainly wasn't about to volunteer any answers on that score._

A clock far above Lightning's head chimed the thirteenth hour, and the soldier held still as a corpse until, at the moment of the final chime, the cathedral doors swung open. Lightning exploded into action, sprinting through the atrium and across a long bridge to the body of the sanctuary proper. She was running toward a figure that lay huddled and curled in on itself before the altar. If she ran far enough and fast enough, she could get to the figure and slay it before...

No. As had always been her wont in her old life, she was too late. Lightning, out of time and now out of breath, pulled up short beside the front rows of pews. At first nothing happened; surely there was still time to kill the figure. But the powers that governed the land of dreams would not let her pass. She could only watch, with a growing horror in the pit of her gut that stemmed from no rational thought processes, but still felt like the beginnings of a menstrual cramp.

The figure was that of a stooped old man, one who had once been powerful and strong, but who had been lost for a long time, floating on the edge between life and death, and was now almost as weak as a kitten. His grey hair was wild and unkempt and long, much longer than an old husk like him would be able to take care of. He wore a threadbare black dressing gown with thin vertical white stripes that frayed at the edges and may have once sported elaborate beading if the discolorations and loose threads along the hemlines were to be believed, though that was millennia ago and no one would know now what patterns or colors the beads once held.

He turned to look at Lightning. As his face rose on his wrinkled tortoise neck to meet her eyes, his mouth curled up into a weak yet disdainful and even vicious sneer. That's when she finally recognized his face: Caius Ballad. Decrepit and frail and ravaged by time, elements, and his own despair, it was yet the face of the man who had once been Lightning's bitterest rival. He was a man for whom life had lost all flavor, but death held no promise either of rest or redemption.

_I was like that, Light realized suddenly. I had nothing left to live for, and still I could not die. Trapped in Valhalla, the world without time, the world between and beyond worlds...Caius has been trapped there too, imprisoned by his own mind though his body cries out for oblivion._

Now Caius was something neither alive nor dead; too weak to feel anger or hatred, but too used to such feelings to approximate anything else.

The dream would not allow Lightning to move forward and grant Caius the death he so craved. She continued to watch, and the terrible cramp-like sensation grew worse as she did, as a young girl emerged from a side chamber. She wore a flowing white dress and had leather sandals on her small feet. A thin beaded belt hung around her waist and her long silvery hair was pushed back and held in place by a similarly beaded diadem. A word resounded in Lightning's mind, a name: Yeul.

Yeul's deep emerald eyes shot a long and hateful stare at Lightning as the girl herself approached Caius and placed her soft, tiny hand upon his bony shoulder. Caius stared up at the girl he once protected. Whether his expression was one of awe or terror or love, Lightning could not have said.

"The path is open," Yeul said gently to Caius, though whether he heard or understood her words was beyond Lightning's ability to guess. "The river of life opens, as all rivers do, into the ocean, and there we floated for far too long. Now we're up in the sky again, and we shall pour down onto the planet as rain, and from there rejoin the river, and so continues the cycle."

Caius's mouth was a tight, thin line. His brows furrowed as well as they could over his clouded blue eyes, but if Yeul noticed the pain there, she didn't acknowledge it.

"But the path back to the world will only allow one of us in," she continued, like a mother lecturing her child in precise, measured language. Her hands cupped Caius's wrinkled face. "That is why we will combine ourselves into one. With your power in battle and mine in Sight, we will be unstoppable."

Then Yeul leaned forward, as if she was going to kiss the old man whose face she still held. But instead of making contact, it was as if the girl disintegrated into Caius's skin. She fell into him and her body disappeared. Lightning had no doubt that the essence of the girl was fully inside Caius's physical shell.

She only had a moment to register this, however, as at the moment of Yeul's final disappearance, a powerful shock wave blasted out from where Caius stood teetering on his shrunken feet. With a deafening crack of splintering wood and stone, pews went flying in every direction and the candles on the altar first snuffed out, then shot like missiles toward the back of the chapel. The nearest of the support pillars fractured with strain and the entire cathedral shuddered. Lightning felt herself moving backwards, but she managed to keep her feet under her, and she rolled when she landed, so the whole experience left her with sore spots that would turn into bruises later, but no major injuries.

In the moment before the dream ended, she saw Caius rise from the epicenter of the blast, tall now and full as he was in the prime of his life. His hair, once grizzled and grey, shone amethyst once more, but his clothes remained unchanged, and the worn black dressing gown now pulled tight around his muscular frame. His face was smooth again, almost handsome in its angelic features, though Lightning could have sworn that the angry, hostile glare looking out from his eyes was not his own, but Yeul's. That look promised revenge, subjugation, and finally, death.

Her field of vision went black then, suddenly, and Lightning was gone, replaced by a fully conscious Light Valentine. In the impenetrable darkness of her bedroom she sat up with a sheen of cold sweat upon her brow and a ragged sob in her throat.

Why this dream was so upsetting to her, she could have no idea, for it was neither as scary nor as tragic as her other stress-dreams; even so, she felt her hands shaking and her heart rate took what seemed an eternity to return to normal.

On instinct, Light reached her hand out until it met with the arm of Vincent, her husband, who slept at her side with the deep, serene sleep of a man well satisfied. After what the two of them had done earlier that evening, such a peaceful rest was well-deserved on his part. A small snore escaped him, the mundane sound of it comforting Light after the distress of her odd vision.

Vision? She shuddered. Hopefully it was just a dream and not so much a 'vision', but then again, Light never had dreams that were both vivid _and_ completely irrelevant to her real life. And this one, once the landscape stopped changing, had been so vivid that it might have even been real life and she could hardly have told the difference.

At her touch, Vincent rolled over so that his body was facing toward her. Still sleeping, his arm reached out until it draped over her legs. If Light had not been sitting up at that moment, the arm would have found her waist. That was a pleasant thought. Careful not to further disturb him, Light shifted her weight back down until she lay beside her husband and his arm was where it belonged. That arm tightened around her like the coil of a snake and Light felt comforted by the snugness of the embrace, the warmth of his skin on hers, and the smell of his skin and hair. His smell reminded her of deer: a warm mixture with hints of leather and fur and clover, accentuated by his favorite brand of shampoo, which smelled faintly of pine and some wild mountain berry. With her physical form quite comfortable now, and her mind occupied with thoughts of bounding through a summer forest in the form of a doe, Light dismissed her horrible vision/dream and slowly drifted back into a blessedly dark and image-free slumber.

"Are you feeling okay?" Vincent asked as he set bowls in front of his wife and son at the breakfast table the next morning. The question was directed at Light, but it took her a moment to catch up to the present.

"Yes. Sorry, I had a bad dream last night and, I guess I just didn't sleep very well at all," was Light's answer as she began pouring cereal into her bowl.

"I had a bad dream last night, too!" their son, Hope, interjected. "There were pirate skeletons and wolves and this big ugly vampire who tried to trap me in his castle!"

Vincent narrowed his eyes at his son's description. "Sounds like someone has been playing too many video games right before bed."

"I only played for like twenty minutes," Hope protested. Vincent stared him down. "Okay more like forty minutes. Maybe an hour. But seriously, not any more than that."

"Uh-huh. Listen, son, I don't mind you playing video games, but if they're giving you bad dreams then don't play them at night, okay? And pay attention to the age recommendations. They're there for a reason."

"Okay, Dad."

Satisfied, Vincent changed the subject. "Your summer vacation starts tomorrow. Do you have any plans with your friends?" Hope just shrugged his response.

"Alex and I were gonna go digging in the rubble piles near Cloud's church."

Light stopped chewing her breakfast cereal to intervene. "Hope you know I don't like it when you dig through Midgar rubble. What if you hurt yourself and can't get help?"

"Denzel is gonna be there, he said he would watch us!"

Light and Vincent exchanged looks. Neither of them had any idea Denzel was coming back to town. They asked Hope where he had heard about that.

"Marlene said so when I talked to her last week. She sounded really excited he was coming home." The two parents relaxed a little. Marlene wouldn't lie about Denzel coming home, and she was smart enough not to spread a rumor about it if there was a chance it wasn't true.

"Sounds like I need to go visit Tifa today," Light resolved as she went back to eating.

She was true to her word. Once she was fully dressed and her son sent off to school, Light headed out. Vincent claimed some other business in town to take care of, so he didn't go with her. Light knew better than to ask what kind of "business" he had. Lately he had gotten back in touch with some of his old Turks contacts, and they paid handsomely for his skills, and more importantly, his discretion. So he was on another case for them, or else he had something to do for the Parent Teach Association. Vincent had been surprisingly active in the events and goings-on in the local school district ever since his son had begun attendance two years prior. Light was unconcerned in any case: whether it was a mission for Turks or the school, she trusted that Vincent would be equal to the task, and would ask for help if he needed it.

The neighborhood the Valentines had moved into was not too far from Tifa's bar, 7th Heaven, and taking the route by bicycle had been the premier method of maintaining physical fitness for Valentines, Lockharts, and Wallaces alike. It took Light a little longer than expected to make the journey, though, as she had not counted on the rush hour traffic delaying her at every intersection. Despite this, she arrived unharmed with plenty of morning to spare. She parked her bicycle in the alley and went in through the back door.

"Light!" exclaimed a very surprised but not at all displeased Tifa when she laid eyes on her best friend standing in her kitchen. "I wasn't expecting you this morning. Something up?"

"Nothing too serious, I hope," Light responded as she and Tifa went together from the kitchen to the main body of the bar and restaurant. Seeing an empty table laden with dishes nearby, Light automatically began bussing as she talked. "My son told me a strange thing this morning, and he said he heard it from Marlene. I'll get right to it: is Denzel expected to come home soon?"

Tifa's smile began to slip. "Yeah, yeah he is." Light stood up straight and set the glasses from the table on the bar.

"What's wrong? I thought you'd be happy to see him."

"I... I am glad that I get to see him again. I was even going to make him a special dinner for when he arrives tonight. It's just..." Tifa faltered. Her hands worried the edge of the dishrag she used to wipe the bar down. "It's the _way_ he's coming home. I talked to him on the phone. He sounded so – I don't know – sad? Kind of disappointed. I don't know if he got fired – I can't imagine why Barret _would_ fire him, he loves that boy and always sings his praises on the rigs – but, I just don't know."

"I understand."

"I just want him to be happy and make a good living doing a job that makes him feel fulfilled. That's not too much to ask."

"It's really not," Light agreed. That was all she wished for her own son's future. Well, she wouldn't say no to grandchildren, when the time came. But she wouldn't push Hope into having kids someday just for her selfish whims. Hope would make his own decisions about that in his own good time, and Light would support him no matter what he chose.

Tifa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Light reached over the bar and took the other woman's hands.

"Hey, sis," she began, tilting her head to meet Tifa's eyes. "No matter what's going on with him, I know you and he and everyone will be okay. We'll work it out."

"We?" Tifa repeated.

"We. Come on, you don't think I'd leave you to face all this on your own, do you?"

Tifa laughed. A step in the right direction. "Yeah, I guess not. There's no problem that can't be solved when Sarge is on base."

Light chuckled. "Ten years and you're still calling me 'Sarge'? Can't I have a promotion yet?"

"Not yet, soldier. You've been slacking on your PT," Tifa teased. Light feigned indignation.

"I may be getting chubby, but at least my hair isn't going grey," she teased back.

Now, to be clear, Light was not 'getting chubby'. In ten years she had probably netted a gain of ten pounds, most of which had gone toward filling out a shapely backside. True, she and Tifa could no longer wear the same size pants, but no one who wasn't privy to their sharing pants in the first place would have noticed this. Likewise, Tifa was not 'going grey'; she had a small area toward the front of her head that had gone grey, but which she had partitioned off into a most fashionable streak that actually looked quite fetching on her with its stark contrast against her otherwise dark hair. Both women had determined that their appearance changes over the past decade had ultimately been for the better, but they still teased one another about them. They were essentially sisters by this point, and that's just what sisters do sometimes.

"_Breaking news!"_ the television called out suddenly. Light and Tifa both looked up at the screen. _"Wheat crops in the Corel and Nibel areas are showing signs of decay. Local authorities have taken samples from the areas and preliminary testing suggests that water contamination may be at fault. Wheat is expected to face major shortages next year as a result."_

"Water contamination?" Tifa muttered. "That's ridiculous: all the irrigation water for those areas comes from the mountain watersheds. There's nothing up in those mountains that should be putting contaminants in the water supply. No factories, no power plants, and even the closest mako reactors have been closed down for ages."

"Manual sabotage?" Light suggested.

"I hope not," Tifa answered. "I'm getting real tired of these terrorist splinter groups messing up our economy."

"Preach it," Light agreed. "How do you know so much about irrigation out there?"

Tifa shrugged. "It's been a long time, but remember I grew up in Nibelheim. I did a lot of odd jobs out there in my early teen years. Farming. Chocobo ranching. The mountain guide job was the most fun, well, er, while it lasted." Tifa cleared her throat and looked away from the television. _That_ was an old skeleton neither of them wanted to draw out of the closet any time soon.

After a moment of awkward silence, the back door opened again and Cloud came into the bar through the kitchen. As per his wont, he pulled off his helmet and set it on the shelf under the bar. Immediately he grabbed a clean glass and went back to the sink and filled it with water. Two gigantic gulps later, the glass was empty again and he was filling it up a second time.

"Thirsty there, Cloud?" Tifa asked as she gaped.

He was silent for a moment while he sipped. Then, "I feel a headache coming on. Gotta stay hydrated."

"You want a painkiller or anything?"

Cloud shook his head gently so as not to aggravate his condition. "No thanks, but if it gets bad enough I might take you up on it. But I'm gonna go lay down in my office, okay? Are there still total light-blocking blinds on that window?" Tifa nodded and gestured toward the stairs.

"Light-blocking blinds?" Light asked when Cloud had disappeared up the stairs. Tifa pulled her attention away from the staircase.

"During the Geostigma outbreak, a little before you woke up, Cloud had it, and he used to get these awful migraines. We put those blinds up so he would always have a place to go that would be dark for him if one came on suddenly."

"I thought you said the Geostigma wasn't a normal disease, but the influence of Jenova poisoning the Lifestream?" Light had never fully understood the whole Jenova business, or the resulting Geostigma. Tifa answered in the affirmative. Light continued, "So after that was resolved, there was no more risk of Geostigma breaking out again, so why keep the blinds?"

"Honestly, we weren't sure that the danger was completely over. Jenova, and her, uh, 'son', they have a way of coming back to haunt us. Even after the 'Stigma was cured, we were still vigilant for a long time. And I'll tell you a secret: if anyone but Vincent had introduced you to us back then, we might have thought _you_ were some new Jenova trick. I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but you must have noticed that you look just like a female version of Cloud, and the Sephiroth Remnants had been targeting him not long before we met you. It would have been a logical step for us to assume that you were created by Jenova to wreak some kind of mischief on us all."

"Is that why he hated me so much back then?" That Cloud had hated her seemingly without reason had always bothered Light. He didn't seem to hate her now, ten years later, but he still kept his cool distance from her whenever possible. They were occasional grudging allies in times of distress, but never friends. Old habits must die even harder than Light expected.

"He never said why for sure, but that would be my guess, yes," Tifa replied with a light shake of one shoulder.

"Okay, so walk me through this whole Jenova thing again, because it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me," said Light with a flustered shake of her head.

"In that case, pull up a seat; this story takes a while..." Tifa replied, and as the two ladies took to their respective bar stools, she began regaling Light with the tale of the Calamity Jenova...

Tifa's story kept Light sitting in that bar all through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. She didn't much see a point in going home; Hope was still in school, Vincent was probably still out on his "mission", and there was plenty to do around 7th Heaven in preparation for Denzel's expected arrival. Light sent a text message to Marlene asking her to please bring Hope with her to the bar after school, and another one out to Vincent to let him know where she was and to meet her at 7th Heaven later for dinner if he wasn't busy. That business taken care of, Light put her phone away and started helping out with preparations. She hated everything about cooking, but years of military service and having a young son had honed her into a top-notch cleaner, so while Tifa worked on dinner Light made the bar and kitchen sparkle.

Marlene and Hope arrived a little before four. They were too excited to concentrate on their respective homework assignments, so instead they harassed Cloud, who was feeling a little better by this point, about the details of Denzel's arrival. Cloud, meanwhile, was sorely regretting his decision to wait out his headache in his office when he had a perfectly serviceable – and more importantly, _silent_ – church in the slums. But of course he couldn't stay in the church too long; Denzel was counting on seeing him, and he absolutely could not risk not being here when the boy arrived.

Vincent showed up just after seven. He looked tired, but exchanged an enthusiastic hug with his buckaroo before putting himself to use making up a bed in the upstairs bedroom for Denzel to sleep in; it was one of those things Tifa had meant to do several days prior, but had forgotten about for some reason or other and was now frantic about. So, to ease her mind on the subject, Vincent urged her to stay put and he would take care of it. He preferred a job like that: simple, quiet, one that did not involve other members of the PTA breathing down his neck about fundraisers for the marching band.

"Rough day?" he heard Light's voice from the hall. She stepped forward and leaned on the door frame.

"It's that obvious, huh?" Vincent answered while he double-checked the corners of the sheet.

"I didn't even see you come in. That means you still owe me a kiss, and you don't forget about that kind of thing unless you're really stressed out."

Vincent froze. In ten years, how many times had he forgotten to kiss his wife after a work-related absence? Only once that he could recall off the top of his head, though there probably had been a few other times if she had worked out a pattern around them. Oh, he was just going to _kill_ the marching band boosters for this. He stood up properly and walked around the half-made bed to stand before Light. She snaked her arms around his waist at the same time his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders and they held each other in that secure hug for a good fifteen seconds before Vincent pulled away enough to tilt his head properly to kiss her.

"Sorry for being late with this," he said when they pulled away for real.

"The PTA's been working you harder lately," Light replied.

Vincent tilted his head in his signature expression of confusion. "How did you know—?"

"You only forget on days when you've been doing something for the school district," she said with a teasing smile. "How telling is it that errands for the booster clubs are more stressful for you than high-risk covert ops?"

"Oh, Light, you should see some of the parents I have to deal with. Why is it that the loudest of them are also the biggest idiots?" Vincent groaned and shook his head.

"Cheer up, Valentine," Light mock-ordered as she reached up and gently flicked her husband on the forehead. "Take pride in the fact that they would just fall apart without you."

He caught the hand that had flicked him and was holding it fast, intertwining his fingers with hers. "I don't think I can handle that much responsibility anymore."

"Hey now, it's not a question of can or can't—"

"'There are some things in life you just do'? You say that all the time, but you've never been to a PTA meeting."

Light laughed, gently, then pecked another kiss on Vincent before disentangling herself from him. "You can do it. Everything you do for that school is for Hope in the end. He'll have a better education thanks to what you're doing now."

"Boy better take up marching band," Vincent replied with a petulant pout.

"If you can get him to switch from the piano to the saxophone, sure, sign him up."

That would never happen. Hope loved his piano.

"Well," he gave in, "it doesn't have to be _marching_ band. Maybe the jazz group we're trying to get set up if marching goes well." They smiled at each other.

"Sounds perfect. Alright, I should get back to Tifa and let you finish here. See you downstairs in a few." With that, Light left the room and headed back toward the stairs. Vincent finished making up the bed and followed suit.

Denzel arrived at nine in the evening via taxi. Vincent took the young man's luggage up to the room he had prepared, Cloud paid the cab driver's fare, and Tifa wrapped Denzel in a tight hug that might have been embarrassing if Denzel hadn't been at least half-expecting it. But Denzel was a resilient young man who knew how to roll with life's punches, and anyway he was too happy to see Tifa to object to her hugs. Once extricated from that, he and Cloud exchanged manly shoulder-grabbing handshakes and Tifa herded the whole group back inside the bar.

Marlene tackled her "big brother" in a bear hug the moment he was inside. Again, Denzel was somewhat prepared for this, and took it in stride. He teased her about her hair – her left braid was a little looser than her right and the visual effect was slightly lopsided – and she returned fire by saying he looked like a hippie and needed to get a haircut himself.

Dinner was a boisterous event that lasted well over an hour, what with so much of the family gathered in one place – that was Tifa's insistence, calling everyone "the family". She always said that it didn't matter who was or wasn't related by blood; family was more about closeness and trust than about the contents of one's birth certificate. In any case, much of the family was gathered in 7th Heaven that night, and Tifa had positively outdone herself in her preparation of Denzel's welcome home meal.

After the meal proper, Denzel dashed upstairs for a moment and returned with three crystal necklaces. The light blue one he handed to Aunt Light, the deep garnet-red one to Tifa, and the rosy pink one went to Marlene.

"There are caves near the fields just overflowing with these crystals in every color of the rainbow. They're a big tourist attraction in the summer. Anyway, I thought you girls might like them," he offered by way of explanation as he passed them out. He helped Marlene with the clasp of hers while Tifa and Light assisted one another.

"They're beautiful, Denzel. Thank you," Light said when she looked down and saw her crystals glittering on her breast. Tifa and Marlene thanked him as well. Marlene attacked him with another big hug.

Shortly after this, Light and Tifa started taking all of the dishes into the kitchen.

"I'll help you with that," Denzel offered, jumping out of his seat.

"You don't have to do that. It's your first night home, you can sit back and relax," Tifa would have gone through with making sure Denzel did just that, but for the next words out of his mouth:

"Actually, Tifa, Aunt Light, there's something important I wanted to talk to both of you about." He sounded so dejected that Tifa didn't dare try to press the issue. She gestured him back into the kitchen where Light had already begun scouring the plates in the industrial sink. Light stopped and dried her hands when she noticed the serious expressions on the faces of the other two.

"What's going on, Denzel?" Tifa asked when it was just the three of them in the kitchen.

He didn't answer right away, but shifted his weight uncomfortably and thrust his hands into his pockets. "Well, you might have noticed that I didn't mention at dinner... why I suddenly decided to come home."

Light and Tifa waited patiently for Denzel to collect his thoughts and launch into his story. He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his light brown hair, then finally he seemed ready to speak.

"First off, no, Barret didn't fire me. I had some accrued vacation time that I'm using for this visit. I just – I needed to get away for a little while.

"It started about a month ago. We were on the offshore rig south of Gongaga, and it was business as usual, until our bit hit something unusual and couldn't get through it. I mean it just _paralyzed_ our whole system. Barret said the densest rock shelves in that area were normally really thin, so if we could we should just try to drill through it, but that just made it worse. Finally we had to get a deep sea diving drone to go down and manually remove the bit and get it out of there. None of us were prepared for what we found with the drone down there.

"The bit, the _entire_ bit, was buried in this massive chunk of crystal. We pulled it up and found that it wasn't just a crystal. There was a _person_ inside it. Just like what happened with you, Aunt Light."

Light and Tifa exchanged concerned looks. Had someone else from Light's time become trapped in crystal and hibernated away the millennia, waiting for someone to come along and break them out? They asked him to continue his story.

"Well," continued Denzel, "We took a bunch of smaller drills to it and got it to fracture so we could pull the guy out of there. We were preparing a chopper to take him ashore and get him to a hospital but he woke up on his own and except for the headache he had that first day he's been fine ever since.

"Barret took a liking to the guy right away. Trained him and gave him a job right there on the rig. The guy was eager to work, too. He was restless in the mess hall and in the dorms. It was like he was only happy or calm when he was working. I never asked him about it, actually I didn't talk to him much, period. He kind of scared me. But Barret loved him. They've got the same... I don't know how to describe it... they both have really _big_ personalities. You know? When they're happy, they're really happy. When they're sad, they're really sad. When they get loud, they get _really_ loud. It seems like everything Barret does is all or nothing, and this guy is the same way. They both take up a lot more space in a room than just their physical frames. I don't know what else to say. They're just...big. And their bigness complements each other and they get along really well. You would think they were childhood best friends, not two dudes who just met each other a month ago.

"As for me, I don't know at all what to make of him. He doesn't seem evil or anything, but, well, I wanted you both to know about him. Just in case he does end up being evil, I want there to be some record of him outside of the rig. Aunt Light, maybe you could meet with him? I thought he might be someone from your time, and it's a long shot but maybe you might know him. Maybe I'm overreacting maybe you'll say I'm just jealous of how much Barret likes him, but... I just want to be sure, you know?"

Light and Tifa exchanged looks again. Light was willing to meet this mysterious stranger. She gave Tifa a small nod.

"Barret called me about a month and a half ago and said he was almost done at that rig for the season and he was going to come visit during his shore leave," Tifa announced to the other two. "That would have been before the crystal man incident, so I don't know if his plans have changed, but I can ask him if he's still coming, and if he'd like to bring his friend with him. Light, you can meet him then, and if you think he's bad news we can find a way to cut him loose." Light nodded her assent.

Denzel was mulling it over. "Bring him here?" he repeated. "Is that safe?"

Tifa shrugged.

"We're all pretty accomplished fighters, if it comes to that," Light assured the young man. "It shouldn't be a problem."

"I'll call Barret in the morning," Tifa decided.

"Thanks, Tifa. Thanks, Aunt Light. It means a lot to me that you're willing to do this." Denzel visibly relaxed, stopped shifting his weight around.

"After a story like that, I'm too curious _not_ to meet him," Tifa replied with a smile.

"I have to admit, I'm pretty curious myself," Light chipped in.

Denzel smiled at the pair of them, then excused himself to go talk to Cloud about machinery. The two of them had always bonded over some kind of repair work, whether it was bikes or Tifa's industrial kitchen appliances, or later, drill parts. Tifa waved the boy away and went back to scrubbing the dishes with Light.

"So what do you make of all that?" Tifa broke in after a few minutes of otherwise silent scrubbing.

"About Denzel's mysterious crystal stranger you mean?"

Tifa nodded.

Light took a deep breath. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for it to be someone I used to know. But think about it: there were millions of people in my time. What are really the chances that I know this one particular person?"

"I dunno, Light, the people you knew back then tended to be really important for some reason or another," Tifa reasoned aloud. "What if only important people got frozen in crystals?"

"I'm just wondering how many crystals there actually _are,_ buried around the world like I was in that mountain," Light started thinking out loud. "What if there are thousands of crystals like mine all over the world? And so many of them will never be found because they're under the ocean floor..."

Tifa stopped that train of thought in its tracks. "Hey, try not to think like that. Maybe it will take a long time to get everyone, but if there are more crystals out there, We'll find them. Okay, maybe not 'we' specifically, but someone. Someone will find them."

"I wonder if there's even a chance that Serah's out there..." Light's eyes began to mist over at the thought of her baby sister. Tifa put a hand on Light's shoulder but didn't say anything. She had never known what to say when Serah was involved. "Probably not," Light continued. "That wouldn't make any sense, considering... So, um, if there's any of that pie left over we should get that put away."

Tifa agreed and went to go check.

"Nope, it looks like the kids went and finished it."

Light chuckled. "I hope they don't hurt their stomachs."

Tifa laughed. "I hope they _do_; it might teach them a little discipline."

It was late when the Valentines finally left 7th Heaven and headed home. Hope was falling asleep where he stood, so Vincent picked him up and carried him.

"So, if it's not too much of a secret," Vincent said to Light as they walked back, "what did Denzel need to talk to you about?"

"Oh. Well, I don't think he'd mind if I told you a little." Light paused to collect herself. "Barret's rig dug up a person. A man. Encased in crystal stasis."

Vincent fought the urge to utter a swear in front of his possibly not-fully-asleep son. "That's incredible," he finally sputtered. "All this time we thought you were the only one."

"Not just me," Light corrected. "I might be the only one so far from my timeline, but you know as well as I that I'm not the only one who ever slept in crystal." She was referencing Vincent's old colleague and almost-girlfriend, Lucrecia Crescent, who entered crystal stasis about thirty-six years prior. Lucrecia, the last l'Cie, slept peacefully in a crystal coffin in a cave not far from the town of Nibelheim. When would she awaken? Light wondered then. How many centuries would pass her by? When the lands and seas changed over time, would Lucrecia become buried in the ocean, like the mystery man from Denzel's tale?

And what about that fal'Cie, whom people now named the Calamity, Jenova? Was she sleeping too? She had last been active before Light had awoken. She sent out the Geostigma; it was like a mad scramble to gather as many new l'Cie as possible. But in her haste she failed to complete the process. Only one person, one of that class called the Sephiroth Remnants, seemed to feel the full strength of her branding, and that one turned into a monster right away. He had to be put down for the safety of everyone in Edge. One might say that if Lucrecia was the last true l'Cie, then that man, Kadaj, was the last true Cieth.

What of the man out at the offshore rig? Was he a l'Cie, too? If so, what were the chances that he was one of Jenova's?

Light wondered if all the people who might be sleeping in crystals under the ocean right at that very moment were all former l'Cie.

Maybe it was just her overactive imagination coupled with the unusual subject matter, but her dreams that night – when she finally managed to actually fall asleep – were peppered with faces from her past. Her friend Hope was there, the small fourteen-year-old Hope she first met in Cocoon. He told her not to worry, that everything would work out for the better. But she also saw Caius again. Why did she dream of him so often?

He taunted her in that dream. "You can't stop the Chaos," he said. "Time moves in a circle, history will repeat itself, and you, warrior-goddess, cannot stop the cycle."

"No, but I can stop you," she retorted, though her voice sounded small and distant to her own ears, the echo of her dream realm.

"Don't be so certain," he sneered back, and a darkness that had been swirling around his feet began to climb up his limbs and envelope his entire body in black mist. "As long as I live in your memories, I will return. Over and over again," he growled those last words as if the prospect of returning brought him physical pain. "As long as you live in my memories, you will be the spark that ignites the flame of my eternal existence."

"As long as you live in my memories, huh?" Light repeated. "Then get out. Get out of my memories, get out of my head!"

Caius shook his head in a blurry, fluid motion that only dreams can simulate. "It's too late for that, Lightning. You took me to your grave, all those years ago. You took me out of the world. Now you'll bring me back in."

"Like hell I will," she spat back in contempt.

"Do not waste your strength fighting this. You will need it all to survive."

With that, the darkness swallowed Caius whole and he disappeared. A sudden cold wind swept over Light then, and in her discomfort and terror, she jerked herself awake, only to greet the first rays of the rising sun peeping through the crack in her curtains.


	2. Chapter 2

Light awoke that morning feeling dizzy and sick to her stomach. A sheen of sweat lay on her limbs and her hand shook when she raised it off the mattress. She knew by the feeling of hyper-salivation in her mouth that she was going to vomit soon. Normally when she was the first to get up in the morning, she was careful about not disturbing her husband at her side, but today she knew that if she took the time to worry about him she would not make it to the bathroom. She squirmed her way out from under his arm and stumbled in her nausea to the bathroom attached to their bedroom. She only just made it to the sink before she felt the bile rise in her throat and she couldn't hold it back anymore.

After her third or fourth retch – she wasn't exactly focused on counting – she dimly registered the sound of footsteps in the bedroom area.

"Light, honey are you okay?" came Vincent's gravelly voice from the door. Instead of a response, Light just coughed and turned on the faucet to rinse her vomit away. Vincent stepped into the bathroom and began to rub her back. "Did you eat something last night that disagreed with you?"

She coughed once more, to clear the last bits of sickness from her throat before responding. "I'm not sure." She spat into the sink. Ugh, the inside of her mouth tasted disgusting. "But I think it's over, at least for now."

Vincent was still rubbing her back. It wouldn't have stopped her from retching again if she had felt the need, but the pressure felt soothing nonetheless.

"Do you need anything?" he asked her as his hand moved in circles over her spine.

"A glass of water?" Light suggested. Her hands were still shaking, too much to reliably hold a full glass.

"Come on, honey. You're sick. You go back to bed and I'll get your water."

"There's so much I have to do today," Light protested.

"And if you feel better later you can take care of those things, but until then I want you to be resting," Vincent answered matter-of-factly as he guided her back to bed. "You haven't been sleeping very well lately. Don't think I haven't noticed. It was only a matter of time before you got sick from it all."

"Vincent, I've been having really weird dreams," she finally admitted to him. "Not normal bad dreams. Super vivid dreams, like visions. And they're terrible. They suggest that a great evil is going to try to force its way back into the world." She decided not to mention Caius by name, or his attendant Chaos-related powers, or even his Seeress charge, Yeul. Mentioning any of that specifically would either confuse or needlessly panic him. There was no need to do either of those things, at least until she had more information.

By this time she was laying down again and Vincent had pulled their duvet over her, up to her shoulders. He placed one of his hands against her face, no doubt checking for a fever. "You don't feel too warm," he informed her. "I'm sure whatever this is will pass quickly." He knew how much she hated to be ill, unable to perform her normal activities. Any assurance he could give her that she would be healthy again in no time was a smart decision on his part. "Stay here and I'll get you that water." He threw a robe around his shoulders and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

He was only gone for a minute or two, but it felt like plenty enough time for Light to start reviewing her dream. She still had a slight nausea running up and down her stomach, but it didn't feel strong enough for her to need to run to the bathroom again. She just wanted, for once, to fall asleep and really _rest._ No frustrating visions filled with surprise appearances from long-dead rivals. Just a simple, dreamless sleep. By the time Vincent returned with the glass, Light was more angry than anything else. Angry at herself for not being able to shut down her subconscious, angry at Caius for continuing to pester her after all this time, angry at her stomach for not being able to hold its own. At least anger was exhausting, and she was able to fall back asleep after drinking some water.

Vincent stayed with her until she lost consciousness again, keeping her steady while she took a drink, assuring her that he would take care of anything that needed doing around the house, or for Hope, or even for Tifa if she called. He filled her mind with the sound of his voice and she breathed easy, comfortable for the first time in weeks. The last thing she remembered feeling before she drifted off was the tickling sensation of his hair against her face when he kissed her forehead.

Once she was out, Vincent set her glass on the bedside table and stealthily sneaked across the room to the closet. He dressed in silence and went to go check on Hope.

Hope wasn't in his room, but Vincent wasn't worried, for at that moment he heard the television in the living room downstairs turn on. The exaggerated voice of a cartoon character announced the shows for the next two-hour block.

"So begins summer vacation," Vincent mused with a nod. He went downstairs and quietly watched one of the shows with his son. It was a mech anime, beautifully animated but poorly dubbed, featuring a level of brightly flashing laser cannon fire that rivaled a good strobe light. Hope got into the show last summer and had watched it every weekend since. Now it was summer and Vincent just knew that re-runs of this show would sound through his house whether he liked it or not.

The show was harmless enough, he had decided early on. The very worst he could say about it was that it had once led Hope to put a pot on top of his head and pretend to shoot lasers at the neighborhood cats. That game came to a crashing end – literally – after he had run into a door frame with that pot on his head. There had been no permanent damage, but Hope was wary of putting things on his head after that.

And anyway, garbled though it was in the shoddy voice acting, Vincent had to admit that the show had generally good themes. Messages about standing up for oneself in the face of danger, the power of friendship, doing one's own research and not taking information at face value, doing the right thing even when the alternatives were much easier; they were good things for a kid to hear. If he wouldn't take the lessons from his parents, well then maybe he would at least listen to Captain Tachibana and the Iliatric Dynamo Crew.

"Hey, sport, what do you say to some breakfast?" Vincent asked when the episode was over. Hope agreed, but he asked if they could have it in the living room, since the network was doing a marathon of this show and he didn't want to miss the next episode. Vincent agreed on the condition that Hope sat at the coffee table and ate his breakfast there instead of over the floor. While Hope got settled, Vincent went to the kitchen and returned with two bowls of cereal.

"Where's Mom?" asked Hope when he began eating and noticed her absence.

"She's not feeling too well so she went back to sleep," came Vincent's answer between bites of cereal.

"I hope she gets better soon."

"Me, too," Vincent agreed. "So, I'm a little lost in this show. What is Captain Tachibana the captain of, exactly?"

As expected, Hope immediately put his mom's illness out of his mind and went into teacher mode. "Okay, the giant robot things are called Ilia when there's a bunch of them. They call just one an Ilium. And each Ilium has a special pilot called a Hectros who controls the Ilium with his brain in a control center called the HELLESPONT, which stands for something like: Hectros Empathic Laser-Led Energy Scatter Plates, for, uh, Operational Network Transmissions. Or something like that. It's a long name, it's hard to remember. Anyway, at the beginning of the series, newly graduated cadet Kengo Tachibana got put in charge of a really lame Ilia team code-named: Paris, and he's spent the last three seasons building up their reputation as a really good unit, but the higher-ups keep taking away his best fighters for leadership officer roles, and giving him delinquents to try to blend into his team."

"I see," said Vincent, though in truth most of that went over his head. "And who are they fighting against?"

"Oh, see the purple one? That's Myrmidia. She's a super powerful Ilium partially controlled by an artificial intelligence and part by this really ruthless commander called Patrokolos."

"The robot has a gender?" Vincent asked skeptically. He didn't particularly see a physical difference between the "male" and "female" robots, except that Myrmidia was the only purple one. But that could just as easily have been to mark her as the antagonist as to designate her gender.

"The A.I. that controls her has a woman's voice and people call her 'her' in the show, so I guess, yeah," Hope answered.

"So who's this Patrokolos?" Vincent pressed when the show cut to commercials. 

When the show's block had ended, Vincent had Hope do a couple of chores around the house before he was allowed to go out with Denzel. Denzel arrived around noon, just in time for Vincent to offer him a spot of lunch before he and Hope headed out, leaving Vincent alone in the kitchen. He decided to go check on Light.

She was awake and feeling better. Her water glass was empty and she had dressed for the day.

"I am starving," she said in answer to Vincent's 'how are you feeling?' "By the way, Tifa hasn't called, has she? She said she might, after she talks to Barret about that mystery man issue."

"No, she hasn't called yet, but she might not have been able to get a hold of him. You know how seriously he takes his work," Vincent pointed out.

Light was combing out a snarl in her hair. "That's true, but I think if anyone could get him to take a call in the middle of the work day, it would be Tifa. He's always been crazy about her."

She was suddenly reminded of Denzel's words from the night before: 'It seems like everything Barret does is all or nothing...' That was true most of the time, but not where Tifa was concerned.

Barret had been madly in love with her for years, since before Light woke out of her crystal stasis. She knew, after knowing him for nearly a decade, that Barret Wallace was simply incapable of doing 'nothing' in regards to his feelings for Tifa, and yet he was physically barred by his line of work from the 'all' side of that equation. Their relationship had been in a state of limbo for a long time; he _had_ to travel for work, and he loved the fact that he was in an industry that allowed for traveling and seeing new places, but Tifa was rooted in Edge. It was her home, her center of strength, and while she didn't dislike traveling, her favorite part of any trip was returning home to the people she loved, and to the thriving business she had built by her own sweat and tears. The two of them had never been able to compromise on the issue. That they deeply loved each other, Light never doubted. In the sense that Barret had given Tifa his whole heart and had blocked entry to every other woman in the world, yes, he was an "all-or-nothing" sort of man. But their lifestyles were just too different to mesh comfortably; no outside observer would look at those two and think that either one was giving it their all. After all, if they really wanted it, they would have found a way to compromise, right?

Nothing was ever quite that simple, Light found herself thinking, and was surprised at herself. Ten years ago she would have sung a different tune. Her old little catch phrase, 'there are some things in life you just do', was a testament to her long-held but slowly crumbling belief that _everything_ had a simple solution if one put one's mind to the task. Too often, her idea of a simple solution involved punching someone or something in the face and working out the details later. A decade of being a wife, and later a mother, had taught her to stop thinking that way. Nearly everything was more complicated than it seemed at first glance. If her marriage hadn't taught her that, then being a business owner surely had.

"I think I'm going to stop by the brewery today," Light suddenly announced. The demand for her homemade moonshine had grown to the point that she had bought a small industrial brewery. The staff was small but competent, and her brand had grown rapidly in reputation in the past couple of years. She now served six bars and pubs in the greater Edge area, including 7th Heaven. Her general manager was more than capable of running the show ninety percent of the time, but Light liked to check in at least once a week, and usually more often than that. She'd talk to her workers at each level, review the financial books and any changes to the city's safety guidelines, taste-test a small sample from the latest batch, and just generally make sure things were running smoothly. And every so often there was a deal to be brokered that she simply needed to be present for, not because she couldn't trust her manager to handle it, but because her negotiation partners were too insecure to deal with anyone but the owner directly. Light hated dealing with that sort of person, but her patience with them had resulted in some very favorable credit terms with her distribution chains, so overall she supposed it was worth the little extra hassle.

"If you're feeling better, then you should," Vincent agreed. "But make sure you eat something first, okay? Can't have you running halfway across town on an empty stomach."

"We don't have any more of those mini-bagel-pizzas you make in the toaster oven, do we?"

Vincent shook his head. "We finished those off last weekend. If you want I can go get some more."

Light smiled that dazzling smile that could convince her husband to do anything. "Would you?" she asked sweetly. Vincent chuckled and nodded.

"Sure thing. Hey, you should put your hair up in a bun before you go out. It's a good look for you; it really says 'I'm the boss of this place, don't make me mad.'" Leaving Light with that little gem to consider, Vincent headed out to the convenience store down the road to pick up the pizza bagels and some extra paper towels, since he noticed during his lunch with Hope and Denzel that they were running low.

Light ate her deliciously cheesy lunch with surprising gusto considering her state that morning. When she was done she put the last finishing touches on her makeup and headed out. Vincent supposed he didn't have much to do around the house at the moment, and no other assignments from either the school or his black-op contacts, so he would go to 7th Heaven to wait for news from Tifa. That was probably where Denzel and Hope would end up after their day together, so it was a convenient spot all around. With their agendas for the day planned out, husband and wife set out on their respective paths.

Tifa was just finishing up on the phone with Barret when Vincent arrived.

"He says he _will_ bring his new friend with him when he comes, and he should be here sometime later this week," she informed Vincent as he took a seat at the bar.

"Do we know anything new about this strange new friend of his?" Vincent asked. Tifa shrugged her shoulders.

"Only that he's 'lookin' forward to meetin' everybody'," Tifa said in her best impression of Barret's casual speech style. "Barret also told him that the main reason for his coming was to meet another person who had woken up from a crystal, but don't worry: he didn't mention that it was Light. He said he wanted his friend to go into this meeting with a completely fresh slate. Personally I think he didn't want the guy to recognize her name and run for the hills before we can we get any further on unraveling his mystery."

"I wonder if they _will_ know each other when he gets here," Vincent thought out loud. He had to admit, if only to himself, that the thought had been quietly nagging at him since last night.

"Worried he might turn out to be an old boyfriend?" Tifa teased.

"More worried that he might be an old enemy," Vincent lied. He couldn't help but feel the smallest twinge of jealousy at the thought that this stranger might have been really close to Light, even, he shuddered to think, an old flame. Of course he told himself it was foolish to worry about that. He and Light had built a life together and loved one another dearly; even if this guy _was_ an old boyfriend, there was no reason to worry about his coming between them.

Still, something irrational in him could not help but worry.

"Enemy seems more likely than lover," Tifa broke through Vincent's mini-reverie. "I don't know about you, but when she's talked to me about her past, she's always had a lot more to say about her past enemies."

"That's how it is with me, too," answered Vincent. "But you know, just because she never _talked_ about old boyfriends doesn't mean they didn't exist."

Tifa briefly placed one of her hands reassuringly on his."So you _are_ worried about that. You really shouldn't think about it too much; from what she's told me, she had one crush when she was twelve. It went nowhere and she hadn't talked to him in seven years by the time her first adventure with the fal'Cie happened." Tifa was trying to be helpful, but Vincent wasn't so sure it was helping. "Trust me on this, Valentine. I grilled her _hard_ about her old love life back in the day, and here's the thing: she talked more about the different methods she used to drive off her little sister's suitors than about anything, or any_one_, she ever did for herself."

"She told me a few of those. The one with the flamethrower always gets a good laugh at the school fundraiser parties." Distracted with thoughts of those tales, Vincent put the image of Light's potential ex-boyfriend out of his head.

Tifa was laughing at the memory of the flamethrower story. It was one of Light's favorites to tell, though she tended to embellish the size of the resulting explosion a little once she'd gotten a few drinks in her system. At those times she also tended to throw around words like "PSICOM", "arrested", and "blue hair dye all over the place". Tifa didn't know what to make of those phrases, since in the first place she wasn't sure what PSICOM stood for, and in the second place Light never talked about those things in the context of the flamethrower story when she was sober. No one had yet managed to get her to divulge what in the world she meant by "blue hair dye". Bringing up that phrase often caused her to snicker wickedly and say something to the effect of "poor little kitten" before changing the subject.

"_Breaking news!"_ exclaimed the nearby television. _"Investigators and local residents alike are baffled at the sight of nearly two hundred starlings dead on the beaches south of Junon. The birds were discovered early this morning by a local fisherman who has asked to remain unnamed. Initial reports show signs of physical trauma in the birds, but these early reports suggest that the damage was caused by the impact after falling from flight, and that all trauma was sustained postmortem. Samples are currently en route to Edge for toxicity analysis."_

"Who poisons a flock of starlings?" Vincent wondered aloud after hearing the report.

"Maybe the same people who contaminate watersheds around Nibelheim?" Tifa suggested.

"One day after another, halfway across the world?" was Vincent's skeptic retort.

"My favorite thing about terrorists is how everything is organized into neat little cells," she replied with sickly sweet venom. More than one cell active at a time would make the most sense. Although, poisoning a watershed, or an entire flock of birds, was a big job, one that could take weeks or months from its start date to show any results. He couldn't help but wonder what other slow-moving poisons were at work in the world at that very moment. 

The entire family waited with bated breath for the day of Barret's, and his mysterious new friend's, arrival. Everyone grew more tense as the appointed day drew nearer, none more so than Light and Denzel, though each for different reasons. Denzel seemed legitimately intimidated by the thought of meeting with the strange man again, and this alone was enough to give the others more pause than they might otherwise have experienced. For Light's part, she was torn between the hope that the stranger would turn out not to be a stranger at all, but some old friend from the good old days. With that hope, however, came the dread of the possibility that she would encounter some old rival.

No matter who came through that door, she told herself, she would behave. She would raise no weapon against him without due provocation. She would give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, she herself changed dramatically after her awakening and subsequent move to Edge. Even if the stranger turned out to be an old enemy, that was no guarantee he would remain as such.

Light just prayed that he wasn't Caius. If he was, she was not so sure that she would be able to live up to her own conviction to play nice.

Even seeing Caius again might be better than building up all these expectations only for the stranger to end up being just that: a stranger. Someone completely unrelated to her in any way. Denzel, Tifa, even Vincent, they were all expecting her to know him on some level. It would be heartbreaking to disappoint their hopes.

Barret walked through the door first. His massive frame took up the entire doorway and he greeted the group with his usual enthusiasm and colorful language. He exchanged a handshake with Vincent that left the latter's arm sore and caused caked mud to fall from the former's clothes. He saluted Denzel and Cloud with his mechanical right arm, and gave hugs to Light, Marlene, and Tifa. The last decade had seen a massive improvement in the technologies associated with his false arm, so he didn't even need to take special precautions against getting mechanical oil on the ladies, a fact for which Marlene was particularly grateful since she tended to be on the receiving end of Barret's tightest hugs. In the commotion around their reunion with Barret, they almost failed to notice the second man step in a few moments after him.

Light saw him first and audibly gasped, pulling the attention of everyone in the room. She felt the tears sting her eyes but even through the slight blur in her vision there was no mistaking him.

His massive body blocked the all the light that might have shown in behind him. That six-foot-seven-inch frame of his was clad all in black wool, a stark and unforgiving contrast against his pale skin and brilliant blond hair. His icy blue eyes locked onto Light's immediately and lit up in recognition.

"Sis!" he bellowed. Ignoring everyone else around them, Snow Villiers covered the ground in the restaurant in two long strides and wrapped Light in a bear hug so sudden and vise-like that it knocked the wind from both of their lungs.

The old Lightning would have dodged or pushed him away, or even hit him. Light as she was now could only hold on and let her tears flow freely. She had prayed for a familiar and friendly face; she would never have dared dream of seeing her brother, one of her best friends – however rocky their relationship had been in the beginning – and possibly the friendliest and most familiar face she _could_ have seen come through that door, after Serah herself.

Vincent just gaped as the spot where his wife had been standing was suddenly taken over with black wool and the body of one of the biggest men he had ever seen in his life. Snow was not quite as bulky as Barret, but he was close, about as broad in the shoulders and an inch taller without factoring in either his boots or his hair. Even if Denzel's skittishness around him was based purely on physical intimidation, Vincent could sympathize with the boy's feelings.

Snow at long last released Light from his crushing hug and held her at arm's length. "You look good, Light. Just like old times." He smiled his big, open, infectious smile, and Light couldn't help but grin back.

"What about you?" she retorted playfully. "I would swear you haven't changed a bit."

"Oh I don't know about that, sis. I like to think somewhere in the past few hundred years I grew up a little." He made a pinching gesture with one of his hands, the universal sign of _"just a little"_.

"Snow, you don't need to grow anymore and that's a fact. If you do, we won't be able to see your face without a telescope or long-range satellite imaging," Light teased.

"Well," interjected Tifa, "I think it's safe to say you two know each other." Her gaze was darting back and forth between Light, Snow, and Vincent. She had no idea what to make of the new stranger, other than to think 'Denzel wasn't kidding about him being big', but she was worried that Vincent might get overly jealous if he kept his hands on Light's shoulders any longer.

Light stepped away from Snow and cleared her throat. "Everyone, this is Snow. He's my brother-in-law."

Everyone's jaws dropped and the room fell silent. Snow was smiling at Light's choice of words. Sure, he and Serah never got to have a real wedding or sign any official documents to make them legally husband and wife, but they had always thought of each other as such during their time together in New Bodhum, and Snow had been calling Light 'sis' since the day after he and Serah got engaged. Light had spent a long time denying that engagement, even becoming angry at Snow for his familiar language toward her. To hear her call him 'brother' with no sarcasm was the greatest gift she could have given him.

"Brother...in-law?" Vincent repeated, dumbstruck. He knew Light had a sister, Serah. He even knew that Serah was engaged to a guy named Snow. But Light had never offered much in the way of a description of the guy. Vincent didn't know anything about what he looked like, and very little about his personality other than that he was loud and stubborn. Light's stories about her life before she entered crystal stasis tended to provide more description of the places she had visited than the people she interacted with. The most she had ever offered about Serah's appearance was that she was more or less a shorter, thinner version of Light herself. This gigantic hunky blond beefcake was in no way what Vincent would have expected paired with the mental image he had prepared of Serah.

Light sidestepped and put her hand on Vincent's arm.

"Snow, this is Vincent, my husband."

It was Snow's turn to gape. "Husband!" He was dumbstruck for a few solid seconds. "I'll be damned. Light, That's amazing. Um, congratulations! Married! Don't take this wrong, but I never would have expected... Well" He cleared his throat and turned a little to address Vincent directly. "Man, I don't know how you convinced this lady to tie the knot, but I'm happy for you guys. How long have you two been together?"

"Ten years," Vincent answered, staring Snow down.

Snow was floored. His eyes widened, first in surprise, then in something almost like horror. His eyebrows had raised so high up his brow they were threatening to disappear into his hairline. "Ten– ten years? Oh damn it, Light, you've been awake that long? The only one from our time?" A sadness that Light had never seen in Snow's eyes suddenly appeared there. Not just sadness, but an intense, prolonged loneliness.

What had Snow endured before entering his own crystal stasis that had put that sadness in his eyes? He had always been so resilient, so enduring, so... cheerful it was sometimes _infuriating_. Something in the past had stolen his smile. And though he seemed to have found it again, there remained in the shadows of that smile the memory of his loss and loneliness. It wasn't just the loss of Serah. Light had already seen that event's effect on him, and intense though it was, it was not sufficient to account for everything she saw in him now.

As if answering some macabre cue that only Light could consciously sense, Tifa spoke up next. "She wasn't alone, you know." Snow turned to regard her. "Light had all of us to help her."

Snow was silent. He didn't know what to say. He could only offer a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever god might be listening, thanking him, her, it or them, that Light had found a wonderful group of people to build a life with.

"And we'll help you too, if you want it," Tifa continued. Barret was nodding his agreement. Behind Snow's back, Light caught Tifa's eye, smiled and mouthed 'thank you'. She had always known Tifa to be generous and kind of spirit, but she had outdone herself once again.

"Really? Again?" Cloud complained.

"Cloud!" Tifa scolded.

"Tifa," he insisted. "You've always had a heart bigger than your common sense. How many strays are you going to take in?"

Marlene broke in suddenly. "Cloud, is that how you see us? Denzel and me, are we just _strays_ that you guys brought home one day?!"

"Nobody calls my baby girl a stray!" Barret cut in.

"Well. We _are _strays, aren't we?" Denzel spoke up. "Me and Marlene, we have you and Tifa, but as far as birth parents are concerned, I mean, we're both orphans. So is Light."

"And so am I," Snow admitted sheepishly. He hadn't intended for his presence to cause such a rift in the family. Part of him wanted to sink down out of sight, but he couldn't and didn't. Not only was that utterly foolish for a man of his physical size, but he had never been one to back down from a challenge before, no matter how difficult or even embarrassing. From the fiery look in Tifa's eyes as she stared Cloud down, Snow guessed that she wasn't one to back down from a challenge either. "Miss Tifa, I don't want to inconvenience you in any way—"

"There's no need for that," Light interrupted. "As long as you're in town, you'll stay with us."

Snow's eyes misted over. "Light?"

"Light?" Vincent repeated.

"We have an extra room. And this way is better for everyone involved." She made eye contact with Cloud as she spoke this last part, her silent reassurance to him that he would not, in fact, be made in any way responsible for yet another "stray". She was also thinking of Denzel and how he had been uncomfortable in Snow's presence. This arrangement kept Snow, all six-and-a-half feet and two hundred twenty pounds of him, out of both of their hair.

Plus, Snow may have been in stasis for thousands of years, but his body was still that of a twenty-three-year-old. Light was in no particular mood to leave Marlene alone with that. It wasn't that she specifically suspected either one of them of getting fresh with the other; she just felt uncomfortable with leaving it open to chance. Light wasn't blind; she knew Snow was conventionally handsome. She also knew that, to people who did not possess the jaded temperament she sported in times past, as Marlene did not, he could be extremely charming, often without trying. And Marlene's personality and emotional makeup could be so similar to Serah's sometimes, it had on more than one occasion made Light wonder if reincarnation was a real thing. Now, Snow had heretofore been almost religiously faithful to Serah. But this was a new world: one that, as far as anyone knew, Serah had never and would never be a part of. And he was only human, after all. If he spent enough time in close quarters with Marlene to see how closely she resembled his old fiancee, well, Light wasn't prepared to deal with the emotional consequences, and she didn't think Tifa or Marlene or Barret were, either.

Light had no doubt that if Snow tried anything, Barret would beat him senseless. But that didn't mean she _wanted_ him to be beaten senseless, nor did she want Marlene caught in the crossfire. Better to nip the whole thing so far in the bud it was more like uprooting the entire plant and jettisoning it into outer space. To that end, she was insistent that Snow stay at her and Vincent's home. If Cloud's hostility wasn't enough to convince him, then the words "I want you to meet your nephew" sealed the deal.

Upon hearing that Light was not only married, but a _mother_, Snow just about passed out. Never in a million years would he have pictured Light in that role. She had always been a soldier, a real rough-around-the-edges type who never had much patience for young kids, or babies.

And of course, he was eager to meet her son. Her _son!_ He could barely contain his excitement. Snow strongly suspected that, despite his dearest wishes, he would never himself be a father. That he had awoken in time to still be an uncle was an unspeakable joy to his heart. How mysterious the workings of the world! That he should live to be an uncle to _Lightning's_ child, of all possible scenarios! He almost fell over himself with his eagerness to accept her invitation to stay.

He noticed that Vincent was somewhat less eager for him to stick around. That wasn't so unusual, Snow thought when he reflected about it later. He was prone to much more of such reflection in recent times than he had been in his youth, and his practice was resulting in improvement. It wasn't a mental stretch for him to understand that his presence, and more particularly his familiarity with Light, was a source of discomfort for her husband. Well, he would just have to get to know the man better. He would show Vincent that he was a good, responsible gentleman who didn't cause trouble and only wanted the best for Light and her family. Snow stood still but mentally punched his fists into each other, his way of getting himself pumped. An uncle! He could barely contain his excitement.

Once all the introductions had been made, Tifa guided everyone to a group of tables that had been pushed together and the whole party sat down to some lunch.

"So, Light," Snow asked her when they were comfortably seated. "Where is this kid of yours now?"

"He's playing at his friend's house today," Light explained. "He should be back in time for dinner, so you'll get to meet him then."

"Lookin' forward to it," he replied with a grin. "Oh, I almost forgot to ask: what's his name?"

Light almost choked on the bite of bread in her mouth. She had never expected to meet someone else from her own timeline, so she had never mentally prepared for the prospect of introducing her kid to someone who would understand the significance of his name. She hastily managed a swallow. Her voice and face took on a sheepish aspect as she answered, "Hope. His name is Hope."

Snow looked down at his plate. His mouth twitched like he wasn't sure whether to smile or not. At last he made the executive decision to take the playful approach to his reply. He tsked at Light in exaggerated mock-disappointment. "You had a perfectly good opportunity to name him after me, and you didn't? I gotta say, sis, that hurts. It hurts me right here." He bumped one of his fists against the general region of his heart. "And also kind of right here," he added as he pointed at his opposite elbow.

Light's first response was to gently punch him in the deltoid ("And now _there_ hurts too," he protested). Then, "Hey, my sister named a cat after you. Did she ever name a cat Hope? No. You already have a legacy; I had to keep Hope's alive, too."

Snow rubbed at his deltoid. It didn't actually hurt at all, as that was never Light's intention. It was more habit than anything, the memory of a time, oh so long ago, when Light's punches could – and more importantly, _would_ – knock him on his ass. That woman certainly did not hold back when there was serious fist-related business to be taken care of. "I guess. Plus, you know, potty training would have just been a nightmare if you had to say _my_ name—"

"Okay!" Light cut him off. "Just so you know, potty training is kind of a nightmare anyway. But yes, I suppose it could have been a lot worse."

"Good thinking, naming your kid after the one guy we knew who actually was still a baby when we first met him. Really helps keep your head clear when it comes time to change diapers."

"Now you're just being mean," Light admonished. "Besides, those are pretty big words from someone whose namesake descendant slept with Yuj every night, and pooped in a box."

"Ouch, Sis," Snow put his hand over his chest like he was clutching at his heart. "You hit even harder now than you did in Yusnaan."

It was like time, breath, life itself stopped all around dumbstruck, confused Light. Her smile slipped. "What?"

"What?"

"What's Yusnaan?"

Snow's brows furrowed at her. "Come on, Light. What do you mean, 'what's Yusnaan?' I know it's been a while, but you can't have forgotten."

By this time Light had set her fork down and was staring at him with the full force of her attention. "Snow. This isn't a joke anymore. What, or where, or _who_, is Yusnaan?"

He tried to match the intensity of her gaze, but he found himself falter when he realized: "You have no memories of it. Of any of it."

Light had no answer. The very fact that she had no memories meant that she had nothing with which to rebut his claim. _Any of what?_ She wanted to ask, but she held her tongue and waited for Snow to offer some kind of explanation.

Snow cleared his throat. "Yusnaan was a city. A beautiful city. A city of light and color and music. It was a place that never slept, there was always a party going on. And, well, I guess you could say I was the leader of that city. People called me 'Lord Snow'. 'Lord', can you imagine it? They named restaurant specials and cocktails after me. And every week there was a play in the Augur's Quarter square. You were even _in_ one. You... you really don't remember."

Light looked more confused than ever. "Snow, what are you talking about? Where was this city? When did all of this happen? You talk about this place like I should know it, and you even claim I was there at least once, but... I don't ever remember going to any city by that name, not in Cocoon or Pulse, or anywhere."

She had rarely seen Snow look so wounded. He had dropped the act; the anguish he felt now was real, and plain as day. "Do you remember _anything_ from the final thirteen days?" he finally croaked out. "Don't you remember how you brought Fang and Vanille back together? Or, how you fought with Caius at the Temple of Etro? Or when you helped to save that sick chocobo? Don't you remember how you saved Noel in Luxerion? Don't you remember anything from that final day and that last battle we fought together?"

Something caught her attention. "Wait, go back. Did you say 'Luxerion'? That was a real place?"

His eyes lit up. "You remember Luxerion? That's good, that's a start!"

Light shook her head. "I don't _remember_ it, exactly. I... I saw it in some of my dreams recently. I saw a cathedral, and a clock tower, and a few streets, and I knew the name they belonged to was Luxerion." Snow nodded knowingly as she spoke.

"Good. That's something to go on at least. Something to tell me that it really was you back then, and not some very convincing clone."

"Snow, I'm sorry I don't remember," she apologized. "But I want to. I want to understand what happened back then. Will you bring me up to speed?"

He smiled. It was one of those slow, sad, bittersweet smiles. "Of course I will, Sis. You saved my soul back then; the least I can do is regale you with stories about how you did it."

Light nodded. The pair of them went back to picking at their lunch, but their laughter and chitchat did not return for the moment. It would, eventually, she hoped, but right now they were each too focused on their own inner turmoils. She was lamenting the loss of her memory of events that clearly held a strong place in Snow's heart and mind, and he was trying to determine the best way of explaining to her what had happened at the end of the old world.


	3. Chapter 3

There wasn't much cleanup to do after all the non-resident family had trickled out of 7th Heaven, but Tifa still found herself with a wet rag, wiping down the bar, again. She supposed it was more of a ritual than a functional task.

"So what'd'ya really think about him, T—?" Barret asked over his whiskey. He was sitting in a bar stool opposite Tifa, just sipping his drink and watching her work. It was almost hypnotic, the regular circle motion of her arm. She paused and met his eyes.

"You mean Snow?" she confirmed. Barret nodded. "You know, when you first talked about him, I was expecting something a little different. Not as young, for starters."

Barret looked surprised. "I made him sound old? That's somethin' I didn't expect to hear."

"Well, you know, not _old_ old," Tifa backtracked. "But older than, what is he? Early twenties at best? I expected him to be more like between our ages. You sounded like you and he were such good friends on the phone, I just assumed you two got that way because of... comparable life experiences." Barret guffawed into his glass.

"You thought he was an old fart like me," he supplied helpfully, but in a light, teasing, borderline singsong sort of voice. "Nah, you're actually kinda right. I know he don't look it, but he's the oldest person I ever met. Did you know that boy is over five hundred?"

Tifa nearly threw her rag at him. "He is not!"

Barret just brought his glass to his lips. "Oh, he is. Even if he ain't as old as all that, he's got way too many old war stories for a twenty-something. Been too many places and seen too many things."

"Five hundred years old... Well, he looks good for an older fella, I'll give him that. Tell me something though: even before Light corroborated his story, you believed this _really_ far-fetched story and trusted him enough to bring him here."

"There a question in there, T—?"

Her hands were on her hips and she had adopted a challenging posture. "Well, what made you believe in him?"

"Ah." Barret put his glass down. "It weren't just the number o' stories he had. He talked about old places, T—. Places I heard Light talk about sometimes. He lived in a town called Bodhum, by the sea, just like her. He was once engaged, but all he would say about the little lady was that she was beautiful and smart and had 'rose-colored hair'. I know now he was talkin' 'bout Light's sister, but at first I really thought it was about Light herself; he never did tell me her name or nothin', just got real quiet and broody for a few. That's why I didn't want to tell him who he was meeting before he got here; if it was Light he was pinin' for, I didn't want to give him time to hope for a nice tidy reunion, ya know?"

"Yeah, I know. I get it," she nodded. "It would have killed him, hoping for a nice, tidy reunion, only to discover the truth. If Light had been the one, I mean."

"Yeah," he agreed.

"It's never easy living in hope for something like that," Tifa continued absently, her voice quiet.

"You're not talkin' about the kid anymore, are ya?" Instead of answering, Tifa turned back toward the kitchen with her head down. "T—, wait. Tifa."

She stopped. Barret hardly ever called her by her full first name. It was usually a sign that he was under some kind of emotional stress, one of the few signs he ever gave of such things. He abandoned his whiskey, stood up from his stool and walked around the bar to where she stood.

"Tifa, don't go. Please. I'm sorry." She just scoffed.

"You say that every time," she told him quietly even as one of her hands came up to start playing with the zipper on the end of his vest. "Just saying 'sorry' doesn't change the fact that I almost never see you."

His hands rose to hold her arms and his forehead rested against hers. "Prob'ly shoulda quit when we were ahead, huh?"

"What does that mean?" she challenged.

"Real talk, T—, maybe it's a little too late to be askin' this, but do you regret sayin' yes all them years ago?"

"Barret—"

"Do you ever wish none o' this had ever happened?"

"No," Tifa insisted. "Well, sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Never enough, though. Turns out, even when I'm mad at you for leaving I'd still rather have you a few times a year than not at all. It sounds kind of pathetic, huh?"

Barret shook his head. "Sounds like someone who deserves a lot better'n I can give her."

"Are you saying it's time to quit? I know we're not 'ahead' anymore, but if that's where this is going then why don't we just get there and be done with it?"

He was so taken aback that he took a physical step backwards. "Quit? No, that's not— Tifa, I love you. An' I don't wanna quit. Actually, I was about to say I'm lookin' for a way to move to Edge. Proper-like. To be with you more."

Tifa's mouth hung open. She physically could not speak for several moments. "B-but, Barret. Your business...?"

"T—, I got good people workin' 'em rigs. I can switch to transport. I still get to travel around, and I'd be on the road a lot, but I'd be comin' back here every week 'stead of every three months."

"Every week," Tifa repeated. If she sounded breathless, it was nothing compared to how she actually felt. "And you would... do that?"

Instead of answering, Barret closed the distance between them and planted a kiss on her. When he could finally speak, "I shoulda done this years ago. I've been an idiot fer stayin' away like I have." He kissed her again. "A complete idiot." And again. "How come ya didn't dump me years ago?"

"Barret?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and take me upstairs."

With a rakish grin he picked her up, bridal style. "Yes, ma'am!" 

"So this is where you ran off to," Light greeted as she stood by the shed in her backyard. She used to keep chocobo feed and supplies in that shed, but since Nuggets passed away she had started using it for holiday decoration storage. Up on the roof of that shed, Snow sat looking up at the moon and stars. He started at the sound of her voice.

"How'd you know I was up here?" he asked.

"Fun story, Snow," she began as she started climbing the ladder. "You might be sitting on the side away from the house, but your head is still visible from the kitchen window. I'm sorry, but you're just too tall for this sneaking out of the house thing." She took a seat next to him. "And your blond hair reflects pretty brightly in the moonlight. If you want to be really sneaky you're gonna have to dye it."

He laughed. Good, she thought. It was always important to start with something light and fluffy when a serious conversation was imminent, and Light knew that just such a talk was on the horizon and closing fast.

"So, you caught me, Light."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah..." The ambient moonlight was bright enough that he could see her staring at him with skepticism so apparent she might as well have voiced it. "No. Not really. It's pretty overwhelming: this place, this town, you're _married_ and have a _kid_, I mean, really? Just the fact that you're here is crazy enough..."

"It took me a while to get used to this place, too," Light admitted.

"But you did," he pressed. "You got used to it, you made friends, you found someone to love." Snow sighed heavily. "This place doesn't feel quite right. It doesn't smell right. The food is all different. I haven't been able to find anything here even remotely like a fried niblet hairball."

"That sounds disgusting," Light interjected.

"The most disgusting," Snow agreed. "And the most delicious thing I've ever had. It's a shame you don't remember; _you're_ the one who turned me onto them."

Light chuckled. "I'll take your word for it."

"Well, you're gonna have to, since I can't find them here for you to try one."

After another chuckle, their smiles died down and they sat in a moment of silence. Then, "It's not just the lack of niblet hairballs that's bothering you, is it?" Light prompted.

"No, it's not," Snow answered tersely. "I... I miss her." She did not need to ask who he was talking about.

"Oh, Snow—"

"No, Sis, I need to get this out. I went through five hundred years without her. Five hundred years and a _lot_ of bad memories trying to forget about her, or make up for her not being there, or just to drown her out so I wouldn't have to feel pain anymore. And then you showed up, beat the crap out of me and told me I needed to fight, because if I just fought hard enough for long enough, we'd win and I'd get to see her again.

"And then we didn't win. We got so close, but the Chaos was too much for us, and God was too strong. He wiped your memories, sealed us all back up in crystal, and made his new _perfect_ world and made us sleep under it for who knows how long...

"Then I wake up, and I'm all alone again. Light, I don't know where Serah's soul is, but I don't think you or me are ever gonna find it. She's never coming back to me..." he broke off here, nearly choked on the lump rising in his throat.

Light put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Snow? Look at me." He looked. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but, you're right: Serah might be in our hearts, but she's not here physically. I don't think she ever was or ever will be. But hey. Keep looking here. You know what Serah wanted more than anything?"

"Yeah," he answered. "She wanted you."

"She wanted to see you smile," Light corrected gently.

"When did she ever have time to say that to you?"

"I was in Valhalla, remember? What, you think I didn't check in on her? And she knew, somehow she knew, or at least hoped, that I was watching and listening. She would talk to me. She would always preface with 'Sis, I miss you,' and then she'd just talk about how her life was going. She spent a lot of time talking about you. And any time you were having a bad day, or feeling frustrated about something, she would always go to her room and just start talking."

"I bet that was tons of fun for you," Snow said sarcastically.

"Serah's never talked to me so much at one time without us arguing about something," Light pointed out. "Of course I would call that fun."

"When you put it like that," he conceded.

"My point in all this," Light continued, "is that you think you're honoring her memory by pining for her and keeping everyone else at arm's length, but do you really think that's how she would want you to live? What happened to the Snow who wanted a white picket fence and a dozen kids? Just because my sister is gone doesn't mean those dreams of yours went with her."

"Sis, if you're telling me to forget about Serah and find someone else, I really can't do that." Light started to interrupt, but Snow wasn't done. "I know you're trying to look out for me, but I wanted that life _with her_. I wanted those kids with her. It's not gonna happen, but I can't just find someone else. Even if that's what she would've wanted, I can't do it. Could you just _find _someone else if Vincent was gone?"

"No, I couldn't," she admitted. "I just don't want you to become an old man with too many regrets and not enough time to fix them."

Snow shrugged his massive shoulders. "So I'll never be a dad. But I bet I can be a kickass uncle," he added with a wink. Light smiled. That was something, at least.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she encouraged.

"Of course, if I'm gonna live the dream, you better give me eleven more nieces and nephews," he teased.

Her answering laugh came out like a bark. "In your dreams, bro."

"No, no, you're breeding for both of us now, you and Vincent better get on that. Only one kid in ten years? You need to step up your game, Light."

"Well excuse me if all that l'Cie-branding, chosen-one-of-the-goddess, hibernating-for-thousands-of-years stuff negatively affected my fertility rate," she said sarcastically. "You're a man, your gametes replace themselves all the time, but these eggs of mine are the same ones I had all the way back in Cocoon."

Snow looked like he had been slapped in the face. "Wow, I didn't even think of that. So the fact that Hope exists is pretty much a miracle."

"For sure," she agreed. He elbowed her lightly in the arm.

"Hey. You did a good job with him. He's a good, strong, healthy kid, and I'm really glad I got to meet him."

"I'm glad, too. It's only been a day, but you've been a pretty good uncle so far, and I'm happy he has you in his life now."

They sat there in contented silence, looking at the moon and stars. A sudden thought occurred to Light.

"Hey Snow, it's a completely different topic, but I want to ask you something, and you're the only person I know who might understand: do you ever have really weird, crazy-vivid dreams about the old world?"

He clearly was not expecting that question. His face became a mask of bewilderment. "Um? I have dreams about the old world all the time, sure, but define 'really weird'. And also define 'crazy-vivid.'"

"More like scary visions than actual dreams," Light prompted. He thought about it for a minute.

"No, nothing like that, sorry," he finally answered. "But then again, I was never a chosen one, so maybe whatever crazy dreams you're having are a holdover from that."

"Maybe. I just wish they'd stop." 

But they didn't stop. He was there again in her nightly visual assault: her old rival, Caius.

_She was a soldier again, a scared and lonely sergeant affecting a grim lone-wolf persona to mask the lonely emptiness within. She was too far gone for Claire, not far gone enough for Light. Trapped in emotional stasis every bit as paralyzing as sleeping in crystal, she was Lightning again. How ironic for her: lightning strikes hard and fades away, an ephemeral dream as fragile as a bubble floating on the summer air. But Lightning was a state of stagnation, forever held in the moment between the strike and the disappearance. Burning too hot, for too long, it was only a matter of time before she burnt out. And what would become of her then? Would she be forced to burn in silence long after the light of her bolt had faded?_

Lightning did not recognize the room in which her dream-self stood. It was a great bare cavernous chamber of steel, with lights running along the edges between wall and floor, their up-cast incandescent glow throwing an ominous greyscale gradient over the plain walls. The ceiling was in total shadow; Lightning could not be certain how high up it was. The only adornment in the entire place was a white sliding door on one wall, with a large number 49 in black paint emblazoned on its shining panels.

Caius Ballad stepped through that door only moments after she got her bearings and finished looking around.

"Lightning," he greeted with a nod.

"You again," she seethed back. "What do you want this time?"

He lifted his empty hands in a gesture of calling for a truce. "You look tense. Would you like to spar? It might help you relax."

"You might not come out on the other end looking so pretty," Lightning threatened. Caius slowly, deliberately lowered one hand to a pocket and pulled out a device that appeared as an ultra-thin remote control.

"No need to worry about that. Our weapons will be holographic." He pressed a button on the remote.

Abruptly, the walls around them began to shimmer and the place transformed into a rooftop in Valhalla, complete with a breathtaking view of the sickly greenish perpetual sunset that lingered over that world. Lightning's own appearance changed as well: Her clothes were gone and in their place she was wearing a dazzling steel suit of armor, the very one she had worn during her service to Etro. Her trusty round shield appeared, strapped to one arm, while her gunblade materialized in her other hand before her very eyes. She looked up to regard Caius.

Only to discover, to her shock, that Caius was nowhere to be seen. Where he had been standing there was now another man.

That man was of Caius's height and general build, though more slender in the face. Everything about him spoke of immeasurable, indescribable danger. His blue-green eyes pierced like a pair venom-coated daggers. Long, impossibly thick, impossibly smooth silver hair ran down his back, gleaming at least as brightly as Lightning's polished armor. He had simple attire dominated by a long black leather coat tailored so closely in the sleeves and torso that he wore it like a second skin. Its lower panels hung as a normal jacket from the waist down, but something about their leathery folds reminded Lightning of a dragon's wings at rest. The whole coat shone in the green ambiance with a malevolence that did not belong to ordinary clothing. The high black collar was so dark against his white skin that it made him look almost sickly, but maybe that impression was emphasized by the obvious hatred marring his otherwise handsome features.

Lightning could not have known whose face she looked upon in that moment. She had never seen him, or anyone like him, before in her life. If only her friends had accompanied her into her dream world; they would have known the form of Sephiroth anywhere.

She had no historical context by which to judge him, but she could read a facial expression well enough, so she adopted a battle stance in preparation for when the animosity in his eyes would inevitably extend to his sword arm. Her opponent lowered his chin slightly and blinked his impossibly thick, impossibly long eyelashes at her. Lightning never knew that a mere blink could be accompanied by so much contempt.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Lightning demanded.

"I am the same person I ever was," the man said in Caius's voice. "I may have changed my look, but my essence remains the same. What about you, Lightning? Who are _you _supposed to be?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" she gripped the hilt of her gunblade a little tighter.

"You've been doing so well the past few years. In fact, I was just thinking that you might be ready."

"Ready for what?"

"But then you come to see me, Lightning, and look at this: we're fighting again." He sounded almost hurt, but Lightning would bet a lot money the sentiment was as manufactured as the virtual Valhalla around them.

"You literally put the weapon in my hand," Lightning pointed out. "You're actually surprised that I would use it?"

"I hoped that you wouldn't. Instead, I have a proposition for you."

"Go. To. Hell." Lightning was about ready to turn around and cut her way out of the virtual reality.

"Maybe I didn't phrase that right," his voice sounded right behind her. Suddenly she felt a sharp pinching sensation in her neck and she realized too late that he had a vise-grip on her upper vertebrae. The next words out of his mouth were not in Caius's voice, but in a deep, calm, much colder tone that she had never heard before. "My Mother has chosen you. You will open the path for me to re-enter this world."

"You and your mother can both go to Hell. I'm not helping you," Lightning promised through gritted teeth.

His mouth was beside her ear. "A long time ago I knew a man, who liked to quote a certain poem, I'm sure you've heard the line. _Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return._ Sound familiar?"

"_LOVELESS_, act five."

"That's right. _To become the dew that quenches the land, to spare the sands, the seas, the skies, I offer thee this silent sacrifice_."

"Aww, you've got it memorized?" Lightning taunted, as well as she was able with his hand still paralyzing her from the neck down.

"What can I say? He beat it into my head."

"Too bad he didn't just beat _you_ in the head and spare me the trouble."

"Why don't you spare _me_ your bravado, Lightning?"

"Make me."

He snarled. So close to her ear, it sounded a lot more dangerous and animalistic than it otherwise would have. "Careful, Lightning. Don't wear your claws out too early. You still need your strength."

With that, he was gone. Lightning fell to her knees, but instead of landing on the stone of Valhalla, she hit the steel floor of the first chamber. Then the world went black, and once again, Light Valentine awoke from her vision in a cold sweat, with another wave of stomach-churning nausea that had her rolling out of bed and running to the bathroom at top speed.

"Light, again?" Vincent's voice sounded wearily at her side.

"Go back to bed, I'm fine," she insisted, even as she coughed and spat into the sink.

"Another bad dream?"

"Have you ever had one so bad that it literally made you sick to your stomach? That's been me all week long."

"I know, and it's got me worried about you. We're going to a doctor in the morning."

"Vincent—"

"Don't 'Vincent' me. You're ill, and we're going to do everything to make you better." His voice was firm, insistent. Only a few times in their marriage did he adopt this tone and issue her commands, and all of those times had been related to her trying to overdo it and push herself too hard when she was ill. Well, at least they were consistent with each other.

"We'll make the appointment in the morning," Light finally agreed. "In the mean time, let's try to go back to sleep, okay? I don't know about you, but I could really use it."

"Agreed."

They went back to bed and neither of them awoke again until the sound of Hope knocking at the door asking for breakfast caused Vincent to finally give in and wake up.

By the time he was sufficiently dressed and had gotten downstairs, Hope was sitting on the living room floor with his eyes once again glued to the sight of Captain Tachibana's team doing battle with Myrmidia on the television. Snow was sitting on the floor with him, his huge bulk dwarfing the tiny eight-year-old boy. Snow was asking questions about the show, mostly the same ones Vincent himself had asked not too long ago.

"Where did you two get matching pajamas?" Vincent asked them as he squinted to make sure of what he was seeing. Sure enough, they were each wearing a nearly identical set of white pajamas covered in images of bright yellow cartoon chocobos.

"Remember, Dad? We got these last month," Hope sounded exasperated that his dad didn't remember purchasing new jammies for him.

"Okay, but then, Snow...?"

"Oh, well when I first woke up, I just had my normal clothes, but Barret showed me a place to pick up a few extra things on the way to Edge. It's crazy that we got the same ones, huh?" he laughed, and he and Hope exchanged fist bumps.

Vincent just nodded, too tired to coherently respond, and went to the kitchen to get bowls of cereal ready. "What store sells chocobo PJ's in his size?" he muttered as he pulled the bowls out.

"Snow, do you like Choco Puffs?" Vincent called from the kitchen.

"Are they made out of chocobos or chocolate?" came his answer from the living room.

Vincent brought out two bowls of the cereal and handed one each to Hope and Snow. "Try and guess. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised," he said to the latter before returning to the kitchen to make himself a bowl.

Light came downstairs in the mean time. "Mm, Choco Puffs," she gushed, and Vincent poured her a bowl too.

"We're almost out. Light, could you add it to the list?" he absently pointed in the direction of the fridge, where lived the magnetized notepad that they used for making grocery lists.

She did, and the two of them went to the living room to eat breakfast with the other two while Captain Tachibana fought for good and justice in the background.

_Mother..._ the word started to reverberate in Light's brain in the cold voice of the man in her dream. Within seconds of 'hearing' the word, her skull was wracked with a searing, splintering headache like the fastest-onset migraine imaginable. She dropped her bowl on the coffee table – and luckily managed to only splash the milk a little instead of spilling the contents all over the table and floor – and clutched at her head.

"Light? Light, honey, what's wrong?" Vincent sounded panicked, and why should he not? Hope and Snow had both turned their heads in confusion at the sudden pained outburst that poured from Light's throat as she tried to put her head back together.

"Oh, God," she groaned. "I swear this is the _mother_ of all headaches... Ow."

"I'm calling the doctor now," Vincent announced. The words weren't even out of his mouth completely by the time he had sprung into action looking for the phone. He found it on one of the bookshelves near the television set and made the call.

Several minutes later, Light was still in all kinds of pain, but Vincent had managed to get them both ready to walk out the door.

"Okay, I'm taking your mom to the doctor," he said to Hope. "We could be gone for several hours. Please don't go anywhere we can't find you, okay? If you need to get out of this house, go to 7th Heaven." He turned to address Snow. "Thank you for offering to watch him while we do his," he said, and he was genuinely grateful. Snow certainly didn't _have_ to step up and offer to keep an eye on Hope, but he did without question or complaint, and Vincent found – though he was surprised at himself for thinking it – that he was glad to have the man around.

Vincent drove while Light sat in the passenger's seat clutching her head. The headache was slowly, very slowly, receding. She could at least open her eyes without the light causing her more pain by the time they arrived at the hospital.

They were sitting in the admissions waiting room, waiting as patiently as possible for the next available doctor, when Vincent's cell phone began buzzing angrily.

"Valentine," he answered after looking at the caller ID. "Sir. Now? I understand." He sighed. "Yes, sir." He hung up.

"You've got a mission," Light guessed, correctly. "They really have great timing."

"They want me at the Midgar Memorial Helipad now to go to Wutai. Whatever it is, it's time-sensitive."

"Go."

"Light," he protested.

"It's your job, right?" she continued. "Go, do your mission. I've got my phone; I'll have Tifa or someone come pick me up when I'm done here."

He kissed her briefly. "I'll be home soon. Call me and tell me how it goes. Even if my phone is out of range, leave me a message okay? I want to be sure you're going to be alright."

"I'll be fine. I'll call you later," Light promised.

Shortly thereafter, Vincent headed out, all the while looking over his shoulder at Light until he was outside the hospital and could no longer see her through the walls.

Light waited fifteen more minutes in that room, which gave her head time to clear more before talking to a doctor, but still seemed to her to reveal a serious lack of organization, or perhaps an under-staffing problem.

"Mrs. Valentine?" she finally heard the voice of a nurse call. She stood up and identified herself.

"This way," said the nurse, and led her down a hallway to an examination room. "The doctor will be with you in just a moment." And then the nurse was gone, leaving Light alone to wait a few minutes longer in solitude.

"Light Valentine?" she finally heard as the doctor entered the exam room.

The doctor was a youngish woman with a slender build and medium brown hair pulled back in a sensible bun. Her name tag said Kingston.

"Yes that's me," Light answered.

"Great. Well, Light, it says here that you've had some trouble sleeping, you've been ill a lot this week, particularly after waking up from 'hyper-vivid dreams', and this morning you suddenly got a headache that you rated as an 8 on our 1 to 10 pain scale. Does all that sound about right?"

Light nodded.

"Okay, and how's your head feeling now?"

"It's subsided to about a 3."

"Okey-doke," the doctor said. "First things first, I'm going to take your temperature and blood pressure, and then I'd like to run a couple of tests. I'd need blood and urine samples for that, is that okay?"

"That's fine," Light said. She was about ready to undergo any test if it meant a reprieve from the issues she'd been having lately.

Her temperature was normal and her blood pressure was a little low but still within the healthy range. Getting blood drawn strung a little but it wasn't too bad. She had a little trouble peeing in the cup though; Light was never the kind of person who just peed on command. Dr. Kingston brought her some water and juice to help the process along. Finally Light produced a sample and the doctor got everything labeled and sent to the lab.

"There are a couple of things we can test for right away with the urine, results should only take an hour or so, but the blood work and the in-depth urine analysis will take about a day to show any results. We have some magazines and crossword puzzle books if you want something to occupy yourself with while you wait for the preliminary results."

Light accepted the crossword puzzles and sat down at the small table in the exam room to work on them. Not that she could concentrate on them very well. Her mind was buzzing with possibilities for what her results would show, as well as buzzing slightly more literally with the remnants of her headache.

About an hour later, her doctor came back with a piece of paper, no doubt the preliminary results from Light's urine test. "Well, Light, I have some good news for you, and I have some bad news, which would you like to hear first?"

"Start me off with the bad news, doc." Better to just get it out of the way.

"The bad news is that the normal medication we would prescribe to help you sleep without dreaming we can't prescribe for you because of another pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, it's a condition that also means we can't prescribe any of the backup medications we might otherwise suggest."

Light narrowed her eyes. "What's the condition? What do I have?"

"Well, that's actually the good news. Congratulations, Light. You're pregnant." 

"You're _what?!_" Tifa practically shrieked an hour later when she arrived to pick Light up from the hospital. She wrapped Light in a big hug. "Congratulations, sis. I'm so happy for you!"

Light was still mostly in a state of shock, with one hand unconsciously resting on her belly. It was up to Tifa to get Light to the car.

"Where's Vincent? Have you told him yet?" she asked the still catatonic Light.

At the mention of Vincent's name, Light snapped out of it a little. "No I haven't. I need to call him. She fumbled with the contents of her purse until she finally found and got a decent grip on her phone.

As expected, the phone went to voicemail, but per his request, she left a message anyway. "Vincent, it's me. I'm with Tifa, we're leaving the hospital. We have to wait a day for the blood work to come back, but, well, I at least found out why I've been so sick in the mornings. Surprise, we're having another baby. We'll talk more about this when you get back, but I just wanted to give you the heads up now. Come back soon, I love you."

"Are you doin' okay, sweetie?" Tifa asked when the phone was hung up and put away. "You look like you're about to cry."

"I just... I never thought I would have another one," Light answered. It was mostly true. She decided to leave off the part where she was more than a little freaked out by the prospect of going through another pregnancy. The last one wasn't exactly a walk in the park, even as pregnancies go. Her blood pressure had jumped all over the place, the swelling in her joints made it so painful to walk that she was forced into bed-rest by the fourth month, and she had developed a temporary but extremely painful sensitivity to meat and eggs, to the point that she had to eat almonds by the fistful to meet her daily protein recommendation. Little Hope got through the experience unscathed, a fact for which Light was enormously grateful, but it was still the worst nine months of her life bar none, and that was saying a lot given her military background.

Tifa wasn't dense; she picked up on Light's anxiety easily. "Sweetie, you don't have to worry, okay? You've got me to help you out, you've got a husband who loves you and would do anything for you. As long as Snow stays in town, you've got a built-in babysitter for Hope. You can do this, but more importantly, you don't have to do it alone. You've got all of us behind you."

"Thank you," Light said quietly. She couldn't say any more than that, as the tears had started to fall and she didn't trust herself to make words happen.

"It's all gonna be okay, Light. Hey, we should do something to celebrate," Tifa suggested. "Anything you want, my treat. Remember that place where we got the best pedicures in the world? We should go there. You know a diner opened near that place, and they're supposed to have these really big, thick milkshakes that you can barely get through a straw. What do you say?"

Light said that that idea sounded great.

"Yay! Girl's day," Tifa smiled. "We haven't had a real one in _forever_." Instead of continuing straight through the next intersection to get back to their normal neighborhood, she turned right toward the shopping center that housed the nail salon.

The pedicure was every bit as good as they remembered. They gabbed back and forth, as friends do, meandering their topics between family news, the summer blockbuster lineup, some associated celebrity gossip, and some of the latest styles of the season. Tifa joked about getting bangs, Light was interested in a pair of gladiator sandals she saw in a magazine at the hospital. Neither of them thought that the trailers for the new action movie looked any good. It was about humans versus giant robots; Tifa thought the effects looked a little _too_ computerized, and Light had too much experience actually fighting fal'Cie for a movie with a similar premise to hold any appeal for her.

"You know that cartoon show Hope likes?" Tifa asked when the first action movie had been exhausted, "I heard it's getting its own live-action movie soon. Like, out next summer soon."

"I saw rumors about that one," Light replied, "but I didn't know they were actually making it."

"Yeah, it's supposed to be this dark and gritty look at what happened between the end of season 1 and the start of season 2. "

"Of course it _has_ to be dark and gritty," Light complained. "Hope is going to be way too excited when they start playing trailers for it. And then I'll have to tell him he's too young."

"You never were very good at telling him no."

"I haven't had a lot of practice," Light reminded her. "He's been such a good kid, I almost never have to say no. Or if I do, I only have to say it once and then he listens. He's never been much of a tantrum thrower."

"That mom card of yours is looking mighty dusty," Tifa agreed. "At least you'll finally get to use it when that movie happens."

"Yay," Light replied with an exaggerated eye roll.

"I saw a picture of the cast lineup. The live action Captain Tachibana is pretty cute."

Ooh, yes, now they got to talk about attractive celebrity boys. Light smiled. "What kind of cute, though? More bad boy cute, or wholesome farm boy cute?"

Tifa had to think about it. "I'd say not super bad boy, but more bad boy than good boy? Oh man, you know who he looks like? That's right, you never met them. Okay, well I knew this guy back in the day. Sassy angry redhead type, you would have loved him..." Tifa rambled on as she pulled out her phone and started looking through her pictures. "Okay, here we go. This one's a little older, it was taken a little bit before you woke up, but the way he looked back then is closer to what the Captain looks like now anyway." She passed the phone over to Light, who looked down at a picture of two men in dark suits. "He's the one on the left," Tifa clarified.

The man on the left certainly looked sassy, and Tifa was not kidding about the redhead thing. His hair was quite literally red, not quite to the point of ketchup but it was trying. He had a mischievous look on his slender, but admittedly cute face. He had one of his arms around the shoulders of the other man in the picture like they were best friends on a beach holiday and not two... what were they? Private security? Secret agents? Some kind of people on an important but understated mission.

"Who are these people?" Light finally asked.

"The sassy redhead is Reno, and the serious guy with the shades is Rude."

"Rude?"

"Yeah, I don't know. His parents must not have been very happy with him."

"But who are they?"

"They're Turks." Light looked up and stared blankly at her friend. "Shinra security division. Surely Vincent told you about Turks?"

"He told me a little about working security for Shinra, but he never mentioned Turks by name."

"Well, that's who he worked for. That's who he still works for. He's technically a private contractor now, but all the intel for those missions he goes on? It all comes through Turks."

"I thought the Shinra company was more or less destroyed...?" Light asked as she handed the phone back over.

Tifa shrugged. "As a power company, yeah, they're history, but they still exist as an information broker and spy agency. After the collapse, it was mostly Turks who returned to work, so the company adapted to suit their skills."

"Do I want to know how you know all this?" Light asked skeptically.

"They tried to recruit Cloud once, back in the day. And I still talk to Reno sometimes. Don't tell Vincent this, but every now and then, Reno gives me an update on how his missions are going. He doesn't tell me anything sensitive, just a little check-in."

"Why?"

"Because he's never met you, but being as you're Vincent's wife he wants someone to be able to assure you he's okay."

"That's... that's really thoughtful. So, all those times you told me not to worry, because you're sure he's fine, that wasn't just you being a supportive friend, but you really knowing he's okay because Reno told you?"

"Yep."

"Good to know." After a slight pause, "So what about Rude? Is he still in?"

"Ah. Rude took a bullet in the line of duty about six years back. He lived, but he works in a lab now, developing plastic explosives. Him and Reno are still friends, but they don't get to hang out like they used to."

"Sad."

"Yeah... Okay, but now that you've seen Reno, I want you to take a look at this still of the new Captain Tachibana and tell me what you think." She found a picture and held the phone over for Light to look.

"Wow. It's like Reno in a green wig."

Two minutes later, Light abruptly burst into laughter. Tifa looked at her in alarm."

"Sorry," she said when the giggles died down enough to allow her to speak. "Sorry, I suddenly tried to picture Vincent in one of those Turks suits."


	4. Chapter 4

Vincent did not call back that day, or the next. Light expected no different; he never made contact on a mission unless he was already on the way home. Still, it would have been nice for her to know if he had received her message. Maybe Reno would put that in his next status update.

It was still strange to her that this Reno character, whom she had never met, would consider her feelings enough to pass those little updates along. That he passed them through Tifa was somewhat ingenious, but then she supposed Shinra didn't let anyone into the Turks who wasn't brilliant on some level.

Slightly dejected, and with the residual ache of a particularly nasty bout of morning sickness gnawing away at her guts, Light spent that entire next morning in 7th Heaven with her head in her arms like she was fighting off a hangover. Barret made her macaroni and cheese with his signature six-cheese blend. At her request, he left out the hot sauce he would otherwise have sprinkled on top.

Barret's mac and cheese was the most inexplicably delicious thing Light had ever had the pleasure of eating. That she could remember, anyway; she had no way of knowing how the mac and cheese measured up to Snow's fried niblet hairballs. As she ate, Light felt the nausea subside like magic. Truly, Barret was a wizard with his mac and cheese. A lifetime of calibrating the pasta process and exact cheese mix had paid off, resulting in a single perfect dish.

She still hadn't told anyone other than Tifa and Vincent's voicemail that she was pregnant. She didn't want anyone to know before Vincent himself had a chance to digest and react to it. Tifa _might_ have told Barret; she had been awfully excited about it the day before, and being very attentive of Tifa's moods, he would have noticed and might have subsequently wheedled it out of her.

But Hope didn't know. Not yet. She had no idea how he would react to the prospect of a little brother or sister, and if Light was being completely honest with herself, she was afraid to find out. Less frightening was the prospect of eventually telling Snow. She already knew what his reaction would be: absolutely thrilled. In fact, her worry was that he might be _too_ thrilled, too eager to get involved. She might have to punch him out to stop him from following her into the delivery room. Light smiled at the thought. She hadn't punched Snow in forever. It felt like abandoning some kind of precious tradition. He was probably happy enough with the new status quo.

Actually, he seemed much more than just happy. After their conversation on the roof of the shed, the darker side of Snow's attitude all but disappeared. Light suspected that his darker side wasn't gone, not really, but he wasn't giving into it. He was productive and helpful, cheery, and perhaps most importantly, he was always there at a moment's notice whenever Hope needed or wanted anything. It warmed Light's heart to see how much Snow loved not just the concept of being an uncle, but actually spending time with his nephew. Hope was the kind of child who absorbed information like a sponge and always seemed to be seeking out new information to absorb. He memorized the dialogue of his favorite show and recited it, complete with sound effects, over meals. In addition to having a voracious appetite for knowledge, Hope was also generous about redistributing it: he would tell anyone and everyone who would listen about the latest topic on which he had made himself a master. He was _disturbingly_ like Serah was at that age, Light thought.

And Snow was happy to listen. Even though Light was sure that as a grown man, Snow already had at least basic knowledge of the things Hope lectured about, he was still eager to listen to more. He occasionally interjected with a dumb joke, usually a sad attempt at a pun about the current topic, but otherwise he just sat and listened, answered a question if Hope asked one. Later he remarked to Light that her kid was a little tiny genius and she better watch out before he took over the world.

"What do you think I'm training for, bro?" she joked back at the time. They had a good laugh and then realized that their laughter might disturb the little genius while he was trying to sleep, so they sat on a couple of chairs on the porch, with throw blankets and mugs of hot tea, and continued the conversation out there.

This morning, Snow and Hope were both back at the house. It was morning, after all, and they had a show to watch together.

"_Breaking news!"_ once again, the television pulled Light's focus. _"Meteorologists confused and locals bewildered as an unseasonable fog covers the Nibel area, including the town of Nibelheim. The fog does not appear to be dangerous, but its origin is a mystery and the associated temperature drop may further damage local crops. For health reasons, officials are urging residents of the area to spend as little time outside their homes as possible, and to wear warm layers when traveling in the area."_

"I don't think that one was caused by terrorists," Light pointed at the television.

"What is _up _ with all these weird news stories about water and dead birds, and now a mysterious unexplained fog?" Marlene agreed as she sat down next to her 'Aunt Light'.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Light said. "I feel like the world's going topsy turvy. It bugs me that no one knows why or how to fix it."

Marlene shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe the Planet is mad at us again."

"Again? Can't it ever just decide to lay off?"

"Nah. We messed it up pretty bad. It's still punishing us," Marlene took Light's fork and stabbed at her mac and cheese until she had a sizable bite, which she proceeded to eat.

"You sound awfully chipper about this whole vengeful Planet thing," Light suggested as she watched.

"Mm, Daddy's mac and cheese just gets better and better." She put the fork down. "Well, here's the thing: I don't really remember a whole lot of time in my life _before_ the Planet was mad, so I've learned to roll with it. It's not so bad. And every time it happens Cloud runs off and just kind of _fixes_ it and everything goes back to normal."

Light narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, he 'fixes it?'" In answer Marlene shrugged again.

"I don't know, he just does. He goes away for a few days or weeks, and when he comes back everything is fine again. The weather calms down, the wild animals stop attacking hikers, and everyone under forty who suffers from arthritis suddenly feels fine again."

"In ten years here, that is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard, and keep in mind I _have _heard stories about Cait Sith," Light said around another bite of mac and cheese. "Just Cloud, all by himself, huh?"

"Uh-huh. I guess he's the only person the Planet likes anymore."

"Well, someone has to."

Marlene giggled.

"So what happens when Cloud's a feeble old man and he can't do whatever he does that makes the Planet happy again?"

"Well, I assume that'll be the day the world ends for real. Maybe Cloud's just putting a band-aid on a wound that's bound to fester and get all gangrenous on us no matter what we do."

"Hey, eating," Light protested, though the unpleasant mental image didn't stop her from shoveling another bite into her mouth.

"Sorry," Marlene apologized, but her smile told Light that she was only half-serious.

"Where's Cloud now? Shouldn't he be getting on this Planet thing?"

"It's not time for that yet," Marlene said simply. Light blinked at her.

"Dare I ask what that means?"

"There's a proper order to how it works," Marlene explained. She took up Light's abandoned fork and stole another bite of mac and cheese before continuing. "First the Planet starts showing early signs that it's mad: weird earthquakes and freak storms and such. Then Cloud gets super depressed and doesn't talk to any of us for a while. Then the Planet starts doing things that are a personal inconvenience to him. And _then_ he goes out and makes it stop. I saw Cloud yesterday and he actually said hi to me, so we're nowhere near the end yet."

"Marlene, how come you're the only one who's noticed this pattern?" Light asked. No one else she'd known in the last ten years had ever mentioned this cycle to her.

"I was a kid when it started, and I've been living with it ever since. And you know," she adopted a dramatic mock-lilting voice, "sometimes it takes the mind of an innocent child to make adults realize the simplest things."

"You've been pointing out inexplicably complex 'simple things' as long as I've known you. I don't think you're going to stop just because you're not a child anymore."

"I hope not," she agreed with a laugh. "The look on Daddy's face when he realizes I've said something that never crossed his mind before is _priceless_."

As if on cue, Cloud arrived at the bar as Light and Marlene were finishing up this line of conversation. He said good morning to both of them before turning to a pile of new mail to look for his do-it-yourself vehicle repair magazine.

"We must be _really_ early in the cycle if he's still willing to talk to you," Marlene muttered to Light behind her hand.

The bar's land-line phone began to ring, and for some reason the shrill sound of it started an annoying thump behind Light's right eye. Please, not another headache, she prayed silently. Tifa came in from the kitchen, looked at the caller ID in confusion, then answered.

"Vincent, what's going on, are you okay?" she said instead of her usual greeting. If it was unusual for him to contact Light during his missions, it was unheard of for him to call 7th Heaven.

She had to pull her head away from the receiver before she had even finished her sentence, however, as a shriek of static and feedback assaulted her ears so loudly that even Marlene and Light, on the other side of the room, could hear it. It lasted one long, excruciating second before it finally died away and Tifa could bring the receiver – gingerly, poised to rip it away again if the feedback decided to return – to her ear.

A cold, deep, smooth voice, distinctly _not_ Vincent's signature gravel, spoke out: "Put the mother of my child on the phone."

Tifa knew she had heard that voice somewhere before, but she couldn't place it. Unsure of whom she was speaking to, and more than a little panicked that whoever it was had gotten his hands on Vincent's cell phone, she turned on speakerphone.

"I'm not sure I understand you. Who do you want to talk to?" she asked tentatively while vigorously waving everyone over.

"Do not try my patience," the voice on the other end warned. "I have Vincent here with me. If anyone other than Lightning speaks next, I'll kill him right here and now."

Light swallowed hard. It was definitely the voice of the strange man from her nightmare. She looked over at Cloud; he had gone white as a ghost and he was clenching his fist to keep from shaking.

"Prove to me that Vincent is still alive," Light finally said, though her mouth had gone dry and she felt like she was going to throw up again.

They heard the cold voice order Vincent to say something.

"Light, don't do anything—" his sentence cut short and they heard a sickening thud.

"Don't finish that sentence," the cold voice warned, slightly muffled. Then his voice came clear again, "Light. That's such a precious nickname. May I use it?"

"You son of a bitch!" Cloud yelled suddenly at the phone. He turned to Light. "Vincent's right; don't do anything he says."

The cold voice laughed. "Well, well, Cloud. Long time no see. I'm actually quite pleased you're here."

"Go to hell and stay there," Cloud snarled.

The voice ignored him. "Light. You have something that belongs to me. Mother and I would like it back."

As all the pieces fell into place, she could only imagine he was speaking of one thing. She pressed her hand protectively against her belly.

"You want it so badly, you'll have to cut it out of me," she challenged, fully confident that she could – and would – eat him alive before he could do any such thing.

The voice chuckled. "Spirited, as I expected of you, but that won't be necessary. You'll walk right into my lab and give me what I want."

"Don't bet on it," she retorted.

"Oh, I am betting on it. I'm betting your husband and son's lives on it." He paused for effect. "Don't flatter yourself into thinking I'd kill them quickly. Have you ever heard the screaming of a tortured child? It will put you off your lunch for a week."

Light was seething. No one threatened her boy and got away with it. That was it; she would murder this man, and his Mother, whoever or whatever she was.

Ignoring both Vincent's and Cloud's warnings, she finally managed to ask, "What are your terms?" She hated herself for giving in, but her family's lives were on the line. She could afford to cooperate, at least for a while, until she could get a plan together; she could _not _afford to anger him right off the bat, in case he actually made good on those threats before she could get organized. If she defied him now, she _might _be able to save Hope, but Vincent would be doomed. That wasn't an option.

"You and your son will come to my lab, on the lowest level of the old Nibelheim reactor. The puppet will show you the way. Other than them, you will come alone. You will submit and obey my further instructions from there. Fail to meet any of these requirements and I will kill everyone you love right in front of your eyes."

"Why do you need my son?" Light demanded. "Whatever you need, you need me for it. Leave him out of it."

"What better way to secure your cooperation than to hold the people you love hostage?" the voice asked. "Either you bring him with you when you come, or I will go and fetch him. It's your choice whether he arrives alive with you, or in a body bag with me. You have forty-eight hours."

He hung up.

The four of them sat in silence for a moment. The only sound was Light's progressively more rapid and frantic breathing.

"That son of a bitch!" she screamed out when she had found her voice.

"At least you know what his terms are. This is the first time he's ever made a ransom call with specific demands," Cloud said. Light stared daggers at him.

"You've dealt with this guy before?"

Cloud nodded. "A few times. So far we've been able to stay ahead of him, but it always gets a lot worse before it gets better."

"Meaning?"

"We've lost good people to him, Light. Friends. Don't underestimate him."

Light threw up her hands. "Who is 'him', anyway?"

The other three took a collective steadying breath. Cloud answered. "Sephiroth."

Light blinked in response. "That— _that's _Sephiroth?" She had heard the stories of the Nightmare. She never expected to actually meet the guy. Truth be told, she rather expected him to be dead by now.

"That was definitely him," Tifa added. "The question is, what do we do about it this time?"

"'What do we do?' We march up, kick his front door in, and rip out every hair on that shiny silver head of his and then shove them down his throat," Light answered savagely.

"Light," Tifa tried to pacify her.

"He'll be watching for our approach," Cloud reminded them. "You won't catch him by surprise, Light. But they might." He gestured to Tifa and Marlene.

"Cloud, what are you plotting?" Marlene asked.

"We, that is Light, Hope, and I, we all go to the reactor like he says. He'll capture us, and he'll think he's won. Sephiroth will be too busy locking us in crates and strapping us to whatever torture devices he has planned, and his guard will be down relative to the outside.

"You, Marlene and Denzel, Barret, Snow, anyone else if you can get a hold of them, you'll follow us at a distance and when he's not paying attention, you slip in. You'll get us free, we'll find Vincent, and we'll take Sephiroth out, just like we always do. It won't be easy, but it's doable, and if we all work fast enough we can get in and out before he has a chance to do... whatever it is he's planning to do with Light."

"It could work," Light supposed. "But I want you to promise me that no matter what happens to me, you'll get Hope out safe."

"We'll get him out," Tifa promised. "_And _we'll get you out. We're all leaving together."

"But if it comes down to it and you have to make a choice," Light pressed. "Promise me."

Cloud cut in. "Light, you're the one he needs to complete whatever he's planning. There's no choice about it. In order to stop Sephiroth from doing something that could put the entire Planet in danger, we have to get you out. That's it. The rest of us are expendable."

"None of you are expendable and if you suggest leaving anyone behind I'm going to punch you," Light warned.

"What I want to know," interrupted Tifa, before the situation could get out of hand, "is why he wants you, specifically."

Light overturned her brain sifting through the memories of her recent visions. "He appeared in one of my dreams. He said that his Mother had chosen me for something, something that would let him re-enter this world. I don't know what to make of that. He didn't exactly tell me the details."

"He talked about Mother, huh? It's nice to know he hasn't really changed since last time." Cloud sounded sarcastic, but Light suspected that Sephiroth's predictability would be their only advantage in the battle she knew was coming soon.

"How many times have you fought with him?" she asked.

"Too many," replied Cloud. "He just keeps coming back, like a mold you can't get out of your walls."

"We can't stay here talking about this much longer," Light said. "He only gave us forty-eight hours to get there."

"If we leave right away and don't stop we can get there in time for a late lunch tomorrow. I remember the way so we won't get lost in the mountains," Cloud offered. "But you're right, sooner would be better than later for getting this party started. We'll take the bikes, go get Hope, and be on the next ferry out.

"The rest of you, take some time to get organized and follow us three hours out," he instructed to Tifa.

"Be careful, both of you," she replied. Cloud nodded and took Light out the back door to the alley where his bikes were parked. They silently started them up and rode to the Valentine house.

"Hope?" Light called when she walked in. "Hope, honey, get your shoes on."

"Mom? What's up?" Hope asked as he walked in from the living room.

"We have to go; put your shoes on," she instructed again. It occurred to her that traveling with an eight-year-old could be disastrous if she didn't prepare. "It's going to be a long trip, make sure you go to the bathroom," she added as she went toward the kitchen to find something to pack as a snack for him.

"Mom, where are we going?" Hope was asking as he sat on the ground finagling his shoe over his heel.

"Nibelheim, and we have to go as soon as possible."

"Is Dad in trouble?" came the follow-up question. Light sighed.

"Yes, he is, son, and we have to go get him."

Snow followed Light into the kitchen. She didn't even look up from pouring trail mix in a plastic bag while he talked.

"Sis, what's really going on? You can get away with short answers with a kid, but don't lie to me. Why are you really going?"

Finally she turned to regard him. "Snow. I don't have much time to explain. I need you to trust me, and I need you to go to 7th Heaven right away. Meet up with Tifa, tell her I said she'd explain everything. I have no doubt that she would, but she might start in the middle if you don't make it clear that you need to hear _everything_, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it, but, Light, just tell me this: are you really going to Nibelheim, and is it really because Vincent's in trouble?"

She took a deep, steadying breath. "Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but there's more. Tifa will explain. And I will be seeing you again soon."

"Mommy, I'm ready to go," Hope said from the doorway. He had even put on a jacket, which had completely slipped Light's mind to mention.

"Alright, let's go. Snow, 7th Heaven. Go as soon as you can."

"Yeah, Sis, I will," he promised, and even as he said it he was bending down to put on his boots.

"Hope, grab your helmet." He grabbed it and followed his mom out.

Cloud was out front with the bikes, which were still running. He held one still while Light put first Hope on, then herself.

"Hi Cloud," said Hope. "I didn't know you were going with us."

"That's right, kiddo," he said with a facial expression that was Cloud's best attempt at a reassuring smile. "You both all set?"

Light nodded. Hope answered "Yep, all set!"

They drove toward the highway without looking back, eager to make it to the ferry station to catch the next one to Costa del Sol. 

No sooner were they out of sight than Snow had pulled on his boots, found the car keys, and was en route to the bar. Burning questions about Light's strange behavior buzzed around in his head like especially tenacious flies, but he swatted them away at least long enough to get inside.

Tifa was trying to draw a basic schematic, from memory, of the inside of the Nibelheim reactor. She had only been inside it once before, but she had also seen the inside of one of the Midgar reactors, and layout-wise the reactors were all similar. Except for the fact that the Nibelheim reactor had that annex in the back with all the mako therapy tanks for Project S experiments, Tifa reminded herself. Luckily, the layout of that particular annex was easy, just one big corridor on a staired incline, with a lot of tanks and a chamber on the end where the remains of Jenova were suspended in a giant tube. All Tifa really had to do was remember which hall in the reactor proper would lead to that annex. After all these years, the whole task was much easier said than done.

Marlene, meanwhile, was on the phone with Barret, urging him to drop everything and come back from whatever scrap pile he and Denzel had decided to play in that day.

"Daddy, this is serious," she was insisting into the phone. "Sephiroth is back, and Light and Vincent and Cloud are all in big trouble. Okay. Ten minutes. Don't be late, Dad. Their lives are on the line here." She hung up.

"Two questions," Snow said by way of announcing his presence. "One, who's Sephiroth? Two, do I need to kill him?"

"Sephiroth is an ex-SOLDIER with a huge chip on his shoulder and the biggest god-complex you've ever seen," Marlene supplied. _Try me,_ Snow thought in response to the god-complex bit, but he held his tongue against saying it.

"And yes, we would very much like your help in killing him," Tifa added, "but not until we get a good plan together."

Snow wasn't super interested in the events of decades past, so he confined his follow-up questions to topics relating to why Light had abruptly showed up, taken Hope, and driven off. Marlene played exposition fairy and filled him in while Tifa went back to fine-tuning her schematics.

"... So now, basically, the plan is to get in, rescue everyone, kick Seph's butt, and get out before something explodes," Marlene finished up as Barret and Denzel burst through the front door.

"And this meeting we're having is to take the basic plan and flesh it out into a real plan," Snow concluded logically. Marlene nodded assent. She then repeated the most important parts of the story for the newcomers.

"Alright, now that we're up to speed," Tifa announced. "It's time to plan. First of all, I think it's important to make note of what advantages we have over Sephiroth, and what advantages we know he has over us."

"Advantage," Barret chimed in, "The reactor's an enclosed space, doesn't give him a lotta room for his fancy flying tricks, and there's nowhere fer him to run when we get him cornered."

"Disadvantage," Tifa rebutted, "He's very familiar with our, that's my and Barret's, fighting styles. He's also been inside Denzel's head with the 'Stigma and might try to take advantage there."

"But," Snow started, "Isn't that also kind of an advantage, if you flip it over? He might know Marlene exists, but he doesn't know anything about her, and he has no way of accounting for me."

"That's right. Right now, in terms of laying a surprise attack, Snow you're our wild card. Sephiroth has a way of sensing people's energies. It's like a dog; once he's caught your scent he never forgets you. You're brand new; there's no way he can prepare for you." Tifa started tapping the butt of her pen against her chin as she thought.

"Advantage," she finally said, "Marlene and Denzel are both small enough to slip into certain areas of the reactor undetected while the bigger and more seasoned fighters cause distractions."

"But we don't know the layout," Denzel protested. "In fact, disadvantage: Tifa, you're the only one of us who might know what the inside of that place looks like." Tifa admitted he was right, but then drew his attention to the map she had been working on.

"Pay special attention to this chamber," she said as she indicated the experimental annex. "This area right here has a lot of personal significance for Sephiroth. Even if he's not using this room for practical reasons he's likely to spend time here. This room is also _full_ of mako tanks. He knows that Cloud goes into a kind of shock after being exposed to even a little bit of concentrated mako. He might put Cloud in one of these tanks to torture him."

"And where would he be keeping Light?" Snow asked.

Tifa sighed. She honestly didn't know. All she could offer was a few guesses. "The problem is that we don't know what he's using her _for_. If he's not keeping her in this room, there are some labs on a lower level, and he mentioned a lab located far down in the complex when he was giving her rendezvous instructions. The lowest labs in the reactor are right on top of the mako stream. Dangerous place if you're not wearing a hazmat suit, and sometimes even if you are. If he's keeping her all the way down there, it's probably because he needs the mako."

"Why not just use the tanks, though? What advantage does he gain from exposing her to it down there?" Marlene, voice of reason that she was, wasted no time asking baffling questions.

"I can't think of a good reason," Tifa finally conceded. "Unless, this sounds silly, but unless he needs his entire work space saturated with it, not just Light herself."

"What in the world is he gonna be doin' to her?" Barret shook his head.

"We won't know until he starts doing it," Denzel voiced what they were all dreading.

"We have to get her out of there. And Vincent, and Cloud, and Hope." Snow's jaw was clenched more tightly than his balled fists. He meant business, and he meant to have it out with Sephiroth soon.

"It's a little less than two hours until we reach Cloud's three hour window. I know it's tough, but we have to wait. In the mean time, let's keep fine-tuning our plan..." Tifa brought them all back around the map and she and Barret, who had visited the general area recently on business, began assessing the available entrances and the surrounding terrain. 

It was the longest ferry ride of Light's life. Ten years ago, when she had fled Edge and gotten on this very ferry to Costa del Sol, she had been upset and preoccupied.

It was nothing compared to what she was feeling now. What was she feeling now? Her stomach hurt from a combination of nausea and anxiety. She could feel her heart beat in her throat, her fingertips, even in her knees.

She was scared, and she wasn't too proud to admit it. Her future was in shadow, the lives of her husband and son thrown up in the air like balls she was meant to juggle but she couldn't see them as they fell. Hope was asleep on a cushioned bench at her side. Cloud had urged her to try to take a nap as well, since they would be driving all through the night. Her racing heart wouldn't let her sleep, wouldn't even let her close her eyes for more than a second. Light knew she would be utterly exhausted later, but that didn't help her sleep now. All she could do was worry, for herself, for the people she loved, and yes, even a little for the future of the Planet.

When he realized that she wasn't going to sleep, Cloud lent her his music player. It didn't have much, he said, but some of the songs might help her relax. He put on the soundtrack to Loveless: the Musical and let her listen. It couldn't undo her anxiety, but it was a thoughtful gesture, and it certainly didn't make her feel worse, so she called that a win. It did make her wonder why Cloud was being nice to her. Maybe he just didn't want her to be too tired to drive later. Sephiroth wouldn't take very well to Light's untimely demise on the road, and Cloud couldn't take out Sephiroth unless he could get close.

It crossed Light's mind that if she _did_ die on the road, then whatever the bastard Sephiroth had in mind for her and the life growing within her, he wouldn't be able to bring his plan to fruition. He wouldn't be able to use her to come back and terrorize the Planet.

She had no guarantee that he couldn't find someone else if she didn't work out, though. If she died, maybe all it would do is anger him enough to murder her family in a fit of pique. He would definitely kill Vincent, even if he left Hope alone. But that would leave little Hope an orphan. He'd certainly fit in with the club in that case, but it wasn't an ideal situation for anyone involved.

Light resolved to live. The possible benefits of dying were vastly outnumbered by the definite drawbacks. One of her hands reached over and rested on Hope's shoulder in a small but visible gesture of maternal love. She finally closed her eyes, but she still couldn't fall asleep. She wondered how the others were faring with their plans, wondered if Vincent was still alive, and if he was relatively safe. She wondered if Sephiroth had any idea that she was going to destroy him one way or another.

Cloud watched as Light's train of thought made itself apparent in the changing expressions of her face. He and Light rarely saw eye to eye, and the few times they did came as an equal shock to each. But right now, Cloud thought as he watched the confusion, the anger, the hurt and determination all pass over her face, all as she brooded over his, Cloud's, nemesis, well... One might say he had never felt as much empathy for the poor woman as he did in that moment. For the first time, the two of them had some kind of common ground that they didn't have to fight over. His eyes traveled down to where little Hope lay drooling on the cushion. That little boy didn't deserve what Sephiroth was putting him and his parents through. Hope had never been anything but sweet and bright and generous, even to Cloud who almost never saw him and was no good with kids in any case. Even if he and Light would never be friends, he could live and be fine with that and lose not a wink, but Hope deserved better. That little bundle of joy Light had been hiding since yesterday deserved better.

"Tifa, get here in time," he muttered to the air. It was all he could do: just put his faith in his friends, and pray that they arrived in time, and with a plan to get everyone out and home safely.

He was surprised at Sephiroth's tactics this time around. A telephone call? Ransom demands? Not his normal MO, not by a long shot. And yet it was clearly his voice on the phone. More than his voice, it was his _presence_. His was distinctive, the kind of presence that sent shuddering, greasy chills up a person's spine and refused to let go for weeks unless a person took heavy medication to help them sleep at night. Cloud would know that aura of his anywhere, and no amount of phone line white static could mask it.

Light was experiencing the aftereffects of Sephiroth's presence firsthand. She finally fell into an uncomfortable, fitful sleep, sitting upright on that bench next to Hope. She didn't know whether she was dreaming or not. Nothing was in sequence as in her other visions. All she had were bizarre shots of darkness interspersed with bright green lights and something dark and viscous that seemed to seep or drip or slide down the edges of her vision. No voices or characters assaulted her senses, but this was not the reprieve she might otherwise have thought it to be. If anything, the erratic lights only made her feel _more_ nauseated, the shadowy drips made her feel more hemmed in and afraid. Cold moved up her limbs like she was slowly being dipped into a pool. Light wanted to scream but a sick, moist pressure all over her skin made her feel like she would drown if she opened her mouth.

She wanted to reach out and hold someone but there was no one to be seen. No Vincent, no Tifa, no Serah, no Snow or Barret... no one. She had no one. She was all alone in the dark.

"Light," she finally heard a voice. She reached out to find it.

Her eyes flew open and her vision finally focused on a dark sleeve that she had somehow reached for and grabbed hold of. It was Cloud. He was leaning over her to wake her up.

"We're here, and we need to get moving," he explained. Light nodded and gently prodded Hope into a state awake enough to stand up and walk while holding onto her hand. "The bikes will be unloaded in a few minutes and then we can go," Cloud added as he led the way down to the docking station.

"Mommy, I have to go potty," Hope complained.

"There's a bathroom in the station, honey. Can you hold it two more minutes?"

"Yeah, okay."

"It's okay, Light," Cloud said over his shoulder. "We've got a little time."

Rationally she knew that they had time, but she was feeling jittery and ill and she just wanted to get there before Sephiroth decided that keeping Vincent alive wasn't necessary for securing her full cooperation. If he had touched a single hair on Vincent's head, Light was going to set his leather jacket on fire. That jacket had looked expensive in her dream; it would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

Light had not been able to summon Odin since that one emotional outburst ten years ago when she and Vincent were not seeing eye to eye on the issue of him having Chaos in his bloodstream. She didn't know if she was still able to call her old eidolon – there hadn't been a dire enough situation to warrant his coming in the past decade – but she hoped she could. Sephiroth deserved to get his pretty fallen-angel-face caught in the curve of Odin's wicked blade, or maybe kicked by his equine Gestalt form.

Later in life, if she lived long enough to have a 'later', Light might look back on this moment and regret that she had allowed her emotional side to come up with so many vicious revenge fantasies for Sephiroth. But that was later, and right now her more savage side, the side dominated by Lightning's primal fighting instincts and Light's maternal protectiveness, was rearing its head and demanding blood.

Her revenge fantasies were all she had to occupy her mind while she waited for Hope to use the bathroom, all she had while they were waiting for Cloud to get the bikes unloaded, all she had while they drove over the countryside into the waning sunset. The noise of the bikes and the dirt under them precluded the possibility of a conversation, and even if they didn't, Cloud wasn't all that talkative by nature anyway, and Hope had fallen back asleep in the seat front of Light, his form secured against falling off by a leather strap tied around their waists. When Cloud had built this bike, he hadn't taken very extensive security measures, nor had he allowed in his design plans for the possibility of a second passenger. It was only thanks to his penchant for wearing too many belts that Light had even this one recourse.

They stopped only once on the way to give Hope a chance to eat something. Neither Cloud nor Light were hungry, or else they were too anxious to notice it. They got right back to the road afterward, and finally arrived outside the Nibelheim reactor at the time Cloud had estimated.

The two adults took a collective deep breath as they stared up at the semi-rusted steel service door that led into the facility.

"Here we are," Cloud said.

"Here we are," Light repeated with a nod.

"Where's here?" asked Hope.

Light turned to her son and knelt in front of him. "Hope," she began, though the emotion building in her throat. "We're here, because Daddy is in trouble, and we need to help him out. Now, whatever happens in there, I want you to know that Mommy and Daddy love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you too, Mommy." Light felt the tears well up and start falling. She pulled Hope into a tight hug. "Mom, why are you crying?"

She sniffed. "You're such a good kid. You always have been. And I love you, I love you so much." She held the hug a little longer, only pulling away when she felt Cloud's hand on her shoulder.

"It's time," he said gently. "Don't worry, Light. We're all walking out of there."

She took a steadying breath, took hold of Hope's hand, and the three of them walked up to the door. It opened at their approach with a hiss of pressurized air and the grate of metal with not enough oil between the gears. Inside the now-open door the reactor was dark, lit only by a track of dim yellow emergency lights running along the walls. Light couldn't help but be reminded of the room in her dream that had been transformed into a virtual Valhalla.

"There's a staircase on the right," Cloud pointed. "It leads to the lower labs. That's where he told us to meet him."

Light nodded. "Let's go." She wanted to add something along the lines of 'the sooner we get in, the sooner we get out', but she knew that wasn't strictly true. It should have been: 'the sooner Tifa and the gang get in, the sooner we get out.'

Not for the first time, and not for the last, she prayed they would make it in time.

Not for the first time, and not for the last, she worried that they might not. She worried that no one would make it out. The family lines of Valentine, Farron, and Strife might well be about to meet their end, unless whatever God still existed was willing to part with a miracle for them.

As one, the three of them stepped forward into the cavernous reactor.


	5. Chapter 5

"Welcome, Lightning," they heard his voice slither through the dim lighting of the lab.

"Show your face, Sephiroth!" Cloud called out into the semi-darkness.

"Oh, Cloud," Sephiroth's voice said with a smarmy, mocking pride. "You've done so well, my little puppet. I always knew you were reliable when it counted."

"I'm here," Light said impatiently. "What do you want with me?"

"All in good time, Lightning. Now then, Cloud, you see the cage I built in the corner? Take the boy and go stand in it. Do it or I gas the room. It's a terrible way to die. Painful. You wouldn't want Hope to have to die that way, would you?"

Against Hope protests, Cloud took the boy as Sephiroth directed. He installed them both within the floor-to-ceiling cage and closed the door.

Sephiroth finally appeared then, seeming to melt out of the shadows. With a smooth movement that didn't seem real, he locked the cage door, put the key in his pocket, and turned to face Light.

"Now then," he said directly to her, "let's get started..."

First of all, he forced her to put on a tight black catsuit covered in little circular ports like the back of an old computer. Then he put her in a small tiled cell with what looked like a shower head in the ceiling, except that instead of water, the head released a fine misty gas. He kept the stream up so long that Light was forced to breathe it in. That was good, he explained. The gas was a primer for concentrated mako exposure, whatever that meant, and it was just important to get it on the inside as on the outside.

Here Cloud protested. He knew he couldn't speak for everyone's experiences, but for him personally, mako was like a lethargic, semi-hallucinogenic drug that left him nauseous for days after exposure and weakened all of his senses to the point of barely functioning. He could not say for sure how Light would react to the procedure, but he doubted that Sephiroth was going to just ease her into it. Whatever he needed done he needed done fast, and he wasn't about to spare Light's feelings or comfort.

Sephiroth of course ignored Cloud's outburst and simply led Lightning, on pain of death for her son and husband, upstairs to the experimental annex. He put her in an empty tank, attached the pipes to the ports on her suit, and locked her in, all the while ignoring her questions and comments.

"Tell me what you want from me!" she screamed after he had sealed the door. In response, he turned on the mako stream valve, which would saturate her body, inside and out, with raw Lifestream energy. Her screams of agony despite the primer were his confirmation that it was all working.

"I want you to give birth to the new me," he answered, though of course she could not and did not hear him. It was a brilliant plan, he thought. As it was, he could only force his body to manifest for short periods of time here on the Planet's surface, and only then if he severely disrupted flow of the Lifestream. Altering the flow of nature didn't concern him terribly, but his antics tended to clue in the humans that something nefarious was afoot, and no sooner could he gain the use of his body than Cloud, and his idiotic friends, would swoop down upon him, destroy his body, and put an end to his schemes for a few years longer.

But oh, if his plan to corrupt Lightning's baby were successful! All the power of Jenova and himself, _combined_ with the magic buried deep within Lightning herself as the goddess Etro's protector and the god Bhunivelze's savior... the very thought of it was exciting. Her child would be born practically a god itself, and if Sephiroth's experiment proceeded as planned, it would grow up with all of Jenova's hatred as well as her powers. Though his body might change, his will, his very soul would live on through Lightning's child. He would finally get his chance to harness the Planet, to ride it through the cosmos as Jenova had done. Sephiroth would be reborn, in the most literal sense.

He turned to go back to the lab. Just as he had primed Lightning for mako exposure, he also had to prime her baby to receive his genetic material. He had to first coat Lightning's womb in a milder, less concentrated version of the Sephiroth gene, lest the child become overwhelmed and die when it was exposed to the real thing. It was a good thing he had Cloud stashed in a cage downstairs.

He repeated the process of mako priming and exposure with Cloud, and after a few minutes in the tank, when his body was nice and saturated – a good method of stimulating the Sephiroth gene to action so it would react when exposed to new tissues – Sephiroth performed his first ever spinal tap. It was easy enough, since Cloud was suffering from his usual mako poisoning and put up no resistance whatsoever. What a convenient little puppet he was. Sephiroth tossed his paralyzed body into a corner. He had no further use for his old nemesis. Not anymore. Not ever again, if only this plan of his would work out the way he hoped.

In a second syringe, separate from his spinal tap equipment, Sephiroth needed to collect a sample of his own personal DNA. He couldn't very well collect his own spinal fluid, but blood would be easy enough, and once Lightning was primed with the shot of Cloud's genes, blood should be suitable enough for his purposes. If he had to he would keep Lightning nearby and administer as many shots as needed. That really wouldn't be his first choice though. True, he was trying to secure a legacy, but he didn't want to play babysitter. More importantly, he didn't want Lightning to know exactly what he was doing or why. The longer he kept her around, the more likely she was to figure it out.

True to their plans, Tifa and her group arrived three hours after Cloud, Light, and Hope. They found that the front door did not open automatically, as it had for the others, but they took its stillness as a good sign. At the very least, if the door _had_ opened, then they would know that someone, whether humanoid or computer, was watching the door. The fact that no one seemed to be watching it was a mark in their favor.

For emergency purposes, the door could be opened with a pair of heavy, slightly rusted valves. Snow and Barret each took a valve and turned with all their might. They fought for every inch of progress, but their fighting was not in vain, as the door at last opened to its fullest and allowed them access.

The place looked completely deserted, and they worried for a moment that maybe Sephiroth had taken them all to a second location. This changed when they listened closer and heard the tiny, muffled screams of a woman. They began running into the complex, but Tifa pulled them all up short.

"Wait," she ordered. "We can guess that Light is in there, but what about the others? They might be in that downstairs lab. Snow and Denzel, I want you to head downstairs and check. Marlene, Barret and I will make a quick lap around this level and then head to the annex. Sephiroth is probably in there, and it would be preferable if we all faced him together." She turned to Snow and Denzel specifically. "Guys, if you find Sephiroth downstairs, do _not_ fight him. Run, yell, and run some more. Find us. He's too strong, and you can't fight him alone. Snow?" She called him out because she figured he might be the type to bite off more than he could chew.

"Don't worry about me, Tifa. I see him, I grab Denzel, we run," Snow agreed. Hot-headed twenty-one-year-old Snow would have stood his ground and fought. Five-hundred-twenty-three-year-old Snow was somewhat smarter about choosing his battles carefully.

The pair of them headed downstairs to begin their search. The others started their loop.

It was Barret who found Vincent, stashed in a side room, beaten, tied up, abandoned and mostly left to die of dehydration or an infection in his wounds. He was borderline delirious when they got him untied. Tifa managed to get him to take some water.

He was furious to learn that Light actually had come to this place in an attempt to win his freedom. In an instantaneous turnaround, his fury channeled itself into his fighting spirit and he couldn't wait to challenge Sephiroth in a venue that didn't involve the latter ambushing him in a dark corner.

The group went back to the spot where they had split up and waited for Snow and Denzel to return, which they did after a few minutes with nothing to report. It was probable that Cloud and Hope were both in the annex with Sephiroth and Light, though what contraption Sephiroth had concocted to keep them from interfering with his plans no one wanted to imagine too closely.

They went to the annex entrance and chose their formation. Tifa and Vincent took point. They would challenge Sephiroth first. Snow and Barret would enter after them, using their visual bulk as a distraction after Sephiroth's inevitable taunting about how his first challengers were clearly too weak to oppose him. Marlene and Denzel would be the last ones in. They would use the other four as a human wall while they searched for and rescued, if possible, their friends.

The first part of the plan went swimmingly. They kicked in the door and caught Sephiroth by surprise. He taunted them as expected, and they even managed to get him stuck in a monologue in which he delivered a marvelous vocal rendition of his plan to be reborn through Light and corrupt the Planet again, more effectively than he ever had before.

Unfortunately, as far as rescue efforts were concerned, it was impossible for anyone to get near Hope; his hands were tied to a pipe near Sephiroth's table full of pointy lab devices and doodads. He was crying for his mom and dad. At the sight of him, Vincent wanted to rip out Sephiroth's throat with his teeth, but he knew that if he moved out of the human wall he could prevent the rescue of Light and Cloud.

Denzel spotted Cloud right away, passed out on the floor. He flipped Cloud over to try and facilitate breathing, but he wasn't sure if Cloud was going to make it; he had never seen a mako poisoning, certainly never one as extensive as Cloud's, and he was quite certain that his dear friend was going to die. All he figured he could do was try to make Cloud as comfortable as possible and then help Marlene find and extract Light. 

Marlene was already one step ahead of his thinking. She had been sneaking her way around the side of the chamber, checking the tanks as she went, and now she was in front of Light. She could see poor Aunt Light through the small viewing window: her head was bowed and her breathing seemed to be coming in ragged gasps. Checking one more time to make sure Sephiroth was distracted, Marlene wrapped both her hands around the release valve and pulled with all her strength.

At first it seemed to do nothing but slick up from the sweat on the girl's palms. Cursing a mighty curse she had heard from Daddy on some occasion prior, she wiped her sweat off on her shorts and tried again. Marlene cried out once with the effort, but finally, _finally_, she felt the valve begin to turn. With her strength renewed along with her hope, she kept pulling until it loosened up enough to spin freely.

The tank's thick door depressurized and hissed open, but Marlene hadn't thought to close the mako vents. Along with the heavy door, she was met with a mighty jet of high-pressure vapors straight from the Lifestream.

At first she did not even register the sensation of the jet on her arm, but then the sting set in. Then, the burn.

The pure, unfiltered mako energy against Marlene's un-primed skin was worse than a chocobrand; it was as if her entire arm had been dipped in battery acid, the way her skin inflamed bright red, then blistered and turned black in places. It bubbled and writhed before her eyes and peeled back to reveal the under-layers of her dermis. The dead, burned-away skin began sloughing off her arm like the ooze from a Geostigma sore.

Marlene couldn't make a sound for the first several seconds. Then, as the agony finally reached her brain, as she realized that the mangled arm before her eyes was her very own, a keening wail escaped her lips. Her throat dilated and contracted back on itself quickly. Her screams likewise got louder and then abruptly choked out as she fell to her knees before the open tank. Instinct told her to cradle her arm in close to her chest, but her last shreds of logic stayed her good hand; what if she got secondary burns from touching the damaged limb? The girl's breaths came in quick gasps almost too small to be worth anything; her eyes unfocused; all the sounds around her were becoming distant as she went into shock. Even the pain receded to a dull throb as Marlene's overwhelmed body fell backwards and landed with a heavy thump on the metal grating of the floor.

Vincent, Tifa, and even Sephiroth all stopped dead in their tracks to hear Marlene's scream. Tifa's breath caught in her throat when she saw what had happened to her baby's left arm. She wanted to run to the girl's aid, but she knew that she would just risk getting them all killed if she let up or showed any weakness at this point. Barret had somewhat less sense than his lady love, and at the sound of his baby girl's scream he charged to her side. He also shot his arm machine gun at the ceiling. He punctured one of the pipes and the jet of mako that had once been streaming out of Light's tank abruptly stopped as that same stream hissed out of the new hole further up the pipe.

Sephiroth watched Marlene, and Tifa's reaction to Marlene, with a satisfaction that found no place on his face no matter how strongly he felt it in his heart. With the adults, those friends of his longtime nemesis, thus distracted, he took the opportunity to sidle around the back side of his work table, where his narrowed green eyes met the wide innocent hazel ones of little Hope.

_Hope_. Sephiroth's mind scoffed at the idea. What a useless namesake. What did any of these people have to hope for? Even the promise of a painless death was beyond his ability, or desire, to give. The mutated soldier reached out, snapped the bonds in one sharp tug, and grabbed Hope around his head, with one hand firmly latched over the boy's mouth to keep him silent. With Hope in tow, Sephiroth returned to his former position.

Vincent should perhaps have seen all this, but his attention was focused elsewhere. For in the moment Marlene fell back against the grating, Light herself recovered consciousness enough to step out from the tank. She was a little unstable, had to concentrate on putting one foot before the other, had to lean a little on her tank door for support, but she was up. Light was ready to go.

No, not Light, Vincent noted as he looked at his wife's face.

Her face was a frozen mask of disdain. Not rage. Just cold simple contempt. This wasn't his Light: in her despair, her mind had pushed everything else away, everything she had known and loved for the past decade. What stood before them all, in a tight black suit that glowed faintly green and was dotted with intake ports for mako injections, was none other than Etro's chosen, Lightning.

Her balance regained, Lightning moved with catlike grace. She stepped over Marlene's prone form without so much as a glance at the young girl, though no doubt her calculating hunter's mind made careful note of the exact position and pose of both the girl and her anguished father. There were about twenty feet between her and where Tifa and Vincent stood, with Sephiroth not far behind. To the right, Snow stared at his sister-in-law, too shocked to move, speak, or even react. He had not seen her like that in...well he had _never_ seen her like that. Similar to that, but never quite the same.

Lightning halved the distance between herself and her enemy in what seemed like three quick, purposeful steps. With considerably less elegance, and with more than a small amount of terror at what Lightning had become, her allies fell back...

...Allowing Lightning for the first time a view of her foe, with his hand around her son.

She pulled up short ten feet from Sephiroth. Her eyes narrowed.

"Get the hell away from my son," she ordered. Her voice sounded hollow, distant. Far from making her command sound empty, to her allies it gave the impression that Sephiroth's life was worth so little that it would require no emotional investment on her part to end it. But the son of Jenova wasn't going to take orders from anyone, not even the mother of his own chosen vessel.

"I'm not in the business of giving hope, only despair," Sephiroth sneered. As he spoke, he allowed his hand to slip from the boy's mouth to around his neck. His grip was just loose enough that Hope let out a weak, strangled cry of "Mommy!" before the soldier's hand tightened, enough to choke the word off, but not enough to crush the larynx.

The cry was barely out of Hope's mouth when Lightning rushed forward, her fist balled and ready to strike. She moved faster than any of her allies could see, too fast for Sephiroth to respond effectively, still fixed to an eight-year-old as he was. Like a literal bolt of lightning, she struck out with her fist and slammed into Sephiroth's gut just below the ribs. For the soldier's part, it felt like he had been kicked by a horse; he fell back, involuntarily releasing Hope as he did. His vision was obscured by a shower of rose petals that had spontaneously erupted in the moment of impact. Or maybe they were flecks of blood. Or stars running through his vision. It didn't matter. What mattered was that he had lost control of Hope, and Lightning was shooing her son safely out of the combat area. The boy ran away, past the scary image of his dad holding a gun, to hide behind his gigantic uncles legs. Snow recovered his wits just enough to take a fighter's stance in front of his nephew. Sephiroth would not get his hands on Hope again, Snow swore it on his life.

Just as well, Sephiroth thought. His back was against his work table: exactly where he needed to be to wrap his gloved hand around the syringe with Cloud's spinal fluid. He allowed a smirk of triumph to cross his features as he stood up and prepared for his counterattack.

Lightning was cracking her knuckles, gearing up for another hit now that her innocent baby boy was out of the way. Sephiroth braced himself and then charged to meet her, with his needle held low.

She didn't see the needle. All she saw in her blind rage was the face of the man who had hurt her family and tortured her. Lightning met his charge with an attack of her own.

Her fist collided this time with his face, and by all the Lifestream and whatever gods there were or might have been! Her hit _stung_. Sephiroth felt his nose crunch and tasted his own hot, salty blood in his mouth. Feathers seemed to erupt from this hit, obscuring his vision, but maybe that was the natural dark haziness of a building concussion.

But it was worth it, he noticed as his vision tried to clear: the needle was buried deep, exactly in Lightning's womb, where he wanted it.

He had administered the spinal fluid, Cloud's altered and mako-saturated genes, and now no matter what Lightning did, she would never be able to stop his, or more accurately Jenova's, genes from taking over her own child. Sephiroth stumbled back and tried to pop his nose back into place. It finally went back to normal with a sickening crunch, and he rubbed his jaw while he watched Lightning. Phase one was successful. All that remained to complete the transformation and force the baby to become Sephiroth's own legacy was blood. All he needed was to get as little as a teaspoon of his own blood into Lightning's bloodstream. He had a second syringe for that. Of course, if that failed, she _had_ punched him pretty hard in the face; if he could get one open wound on the woman, he could spit into it and that would carry in enough blood to get the job done.

Lightning was doubled over in pain. The syringe was out of her uterus – it chimed cheerily against the floor where it fell – but that was fine: its contents were what mattered, and they were exactly where they needed to be. Lightning gasped; her hands clawed at her belly. As if that would stop anything. A primal scream came forth from her throat, whether more from rage or pain it was impossible to say. Trembling, she raised her head to meet Sephiroth's eyes. He smiled his first genuine smile in a long time when his gaze met a pair of green tinged eyes with slitted pupils. Just like his.

It wasn't just her eyes that glowed green, he noted. Her entire body had started to shimmer, with the bulk of the light localized around a point on her sternum between her breasts. If he had known her from the old days of her past he would have recognized it as the site of her old l'Cie brand. Interesting, thought he. It was as if the old god that had once guided and protected Lightning was still around, perhaps even fighting off the Jenova cells. He'd see about that.

Her allies cried out. They wanted to help. Vincent was about to run to her side in a useless attempt to make it all better. Sephiroth was not about to let that happen, now was he? In triumph, he stretched out his right arm, and from his shoulder-blade there suddenly grew a great black wing. Feathers scattered across the room as the wing extended, and he began to bate the air. It wasn't enough for him to achieve liftoff, but it was enough to start an air current moving, one strong enough and loud enough to keep Lightning's allies from joining her. They raised their arms and shielded their eyes against the feathers and the the dust borne on the air.

"No," Lightning protested against the air. He would _not_ use her for his evil ends. She would stop him. She would fight. But she couldn't do it alone.

What he had injected into her was powerful, in a way she had never sensed before. Lightning needed that power now. She had to embrace the Lifestream, and yes, the Jenova, inside her. Fighting it would only leave her too weak to destroy her foe. She took a deep breath, became one with her pain and with the serene green glow building in her mind's eye. Something fell out of her hair and landed in her hand: a pink feather that matched the tone of her hair. Well, she had no idea what that was about, but it was time to turn the power of Jenova against her son.

Lightning's hands began to glow green so brilliant that none save Sephiroth himself could watch. The flashing was over quickly, though, and in her hand where once had been bands of light there was now her trusted gunblade.

Sephiroth responded in kind, summoning his own seven-foot katana from the very same Lifestream energy. "You are very strong, Lightning," he noted with approval. "Mother chose well."

"She's quite a piece of work, your Mother," Lightning responded without any emotion in her controlled voice.

"Mother has endured for thousands of years, and she will for thousands more, even unto the end of this pitiful Planet."

"Yeah, moms are tough," Lightning agreed. "But you haven't seen anything yet." An itch began building in Lightning's shoulders and on instinct she extended her left arm. As with Sephiroth, the action stimulated muscle growth, and a wing pulled at the back of Light's suit until it tore through. Her feathers were shining white, and her wingspan slightly shorter than Sephiroth's, but the muscles were true, and the wing was powerful enough to lift her off the ground without her even needed to jump to give it a push.

She flew up toward the top of the chamber, hit the ceiling with her feet, then reversed and began to dive toward Sephiroth. As she began her descent, he kicked off and rose to meet her. The two met in the air midway and their swords clashed together with a hideous ring of steel on steel that sounded eerily displaced in the gusts from their wings. For minutes, they traded blows and parries. A deafening cacophony of metallic clangs and dull thuds where they bodily crashed into one another rose throughout the room. Blood dripped down from them like erratic spells of rain as they traded minor cuts and lacerations. To look at them, one would assume that the pair of them had been mauled by a medium-sized jungle cat. It was obvious that one of them would emerge from this battle dead, and the other would be so sore that they only _wished_ they could be so lucky.

Down below, Snow was holding onto Hope, keeping the boy's head down so as not to witness the violence, and trying to cover his ears against the din. Tifa and Vincent were utterly dumbstruck as they watched, each praying for Light's safety and a swift, decisive, Light-victorious end to the battle. Barret was cradling his injured girl in his arms while Marlene herself was unconscious from the shock. In their discarded little corner, Denzel tried to tend to the mako-poisoned Cloud, who was himself blearily staring up at the battle and wondering, somewhere in the fuzzy recesses of his mind, if his own past battles with Sephiroth had looked that spectacular.

"Face it, Lightning," Sephiroth taunted as they locked blades again. "There is nothing you can do. Now that my Mother's genetic material is inside of you, you will always be our puppet. Our slave."

Lightning snarled at him, reversed her position and kicked him in the gut. She adjusted her grip on her blade and prepared her next move.

"No," she countered. "I'm no one's slave."

Lightning rolled into a dive with her blade in a backhand grip. As she made contact she curled her wing in and spun twice to the left, then reversed both momentum and grip and slashed right. She used the change in momentum to push off of him again with her feet, then flip herself over and dive a second time. She stabbed twice and performed one last spinning slash that opened Sephiroth's belly up from his hip to his opposite ribs. She stopped short and beat her wing rapidly to keep herself afloat as Sephiroth's blood sprayed up toward the ceiling in the aftermath of the attack she had once called 'Army of One'. His eyes widened in shock and his own wing stopped beating. He fell to the ground and hid with a bone-crunching thud. His sword disappeared, dissipated into the Lifestream. Light dived one last time, driving her blade into his heart all the way until she felt it collide with the steel grating on the other side of his back.

"You'll... never... be rid of m-me..." Sephiroth sputtered at last.

"Not forever," Lightning agreed. "But this will do for now." She pulled her blade out of his chest and cut off his head.

She dropped her gunblade then and it disintegrated into a shower of green sparks. She backed off and stepped away, watching in horror as Sephiroth, the Enemy of the World, also began to disintegrate, first into a haze of black smoke and feathers, and then into a sort of black oil that sloughed through the grate and disappeared into the shadows below. The drops of his blood that had fallen to the floor and that coated parts of Lightning's skin floated off and dissipated into the air. He was just... gone. As if he had never been. As if he would never be again. Lightning doubted that. He would always find a way back. His genetic material lived on. In Cloud.

In a rage, Lightning turned and located him. He was helplessly pinned to the floor, his mako-poisoning skewing his sense of reality and consciousness. It would be so easy to kill him now and end the threat of him bringing Sephiroth back ever again.

Tifa saw her intentions and raced to get to Cloud before Lightning did. "Light, stop!" she yelled as she skidded to a stop in front of Cloud's prone form. "I know what you're thinking, Light, but stop."

"Stop?" Lightning demanded. "Tifa, you saw what Sephiroth can do. He can come back whenever he wants. All he needs is right there." She pointed at Cloud. "As long as Jenova's cells live on, he can come back. Killing those cells is the _only_ way to keep him down for good."

"Are you going to kill your own child, too?" Tifa demanded, her voice rising almost to the level of a shriek. "Think, Light! He injected you with Cloud's DNA, that's _Jenova's_ DNA by your own admission. Your baby has the Sephiroth gene now, whether you like it or not! What are you going to do about that?"

Lightning stopped. Her jaw trembled. Her fists clenched and unclenched. She began to shake. "What am I going to do," she repeated. A wild look shone in her eye like a feral cat. "No. No, no no!" A wild sob escaped her then and she fell to her knees. Tifa crouched down and put an arm around Light's shoulders.

"Shh, it's going to be okay," Tifa comforted her. "We'll figure it all out."

"This nightmare will never end, will it?" Light asked in a voice muffled by Tifa's shoulder.

"Yes, Light, it will end, as long as we keep fighting and never give up. And as long as we never turn on each other. We all need to be strong, but it's not enough on our own, okay? We need to stick together."

Vincent ran over. Tifa relinquished her hold on her friend so that she could lean on her husband. Immediately Light's fingers curled into his clothing and she sobbed into his chest. He put one hand on the back of her head and just kept telling her it was okay, that she was safe, that Hope was safe, and they would all be going home soon. All the rest could wait.

They carried their wounded out of the reactor. Barret wouldn't let anyone take Marlene from him. "I'm not lettin' go 'til we get my girl to a hospital," he insisted, and no one fought him on it. Snow, being the next strongest, carried Cloud out over his shoulder. Vincent and Tifa supported the distraught Light and walked her out. Denzel brought up the rear, holding onto little Hope's hand and telling him that his mom and dad and Uncle Cloud and cousin Marlene were all going to be just fine, you'll see.

The nearest decent hospital was just outside Costa del Sol. They loaded the wounded into their car and, with Barret at the wheel and Tifa tending to the infirm and to little Hope as well as she could, they sped off into the night at reckless speed. Vincent and Snow took the two bikes and followed. 

Marlene was in intensive care for two weeks. The doctors told Barret – and Tifa, who they listed as her mother regardless of blood relation – that Marlene would never regain the use of her left arm. The gangrene set in within a day, and they had to amputate just below the elbow. Barret was furious, Tifa in tears, but the doctors assured the worried 'parents' that Marlene was a prime subject for testing a new kind of prosthetics that would enable a greater level of manual dexterity than had ever been seen before in medical science. Barret and Tifa, after some deliberation, agreed to the procedure.

The doctors had been keeping her in an artificially induced but very stable coma. They said that the shock of losing a limb, especially in such a horrific manner, could be too traumatizing and might even cause her to go into violent hysterics. By the time Marlene awoke from her coma, they had fitted her with the prosthetic arm. Other than its visible titanium rods, it was like she had never lost the arm. Hopefully its weight would be a close enough match to her natural arm that it wouldn't be too awkward for her to learn how to use it.

She was horrified for the first few minutes when her parents told her what had happened and what they had authorized to have done for her. But then she became very calm, almost terrifying in her serenity. They asked her why she was so very calm about it all.

Marlene smiled and held up her metal hand. "Look, Daddy. I'm just like you now." 

Cloud recovered from his mako poisoning in a few days. He wasn't in much danger, but he was confused as to why, when he regained his full faculties, he was in a hospital bed and had an IV stuck in his arm. Denzel urged him not to worry, as it was just a saline solution to make sure he didn't get dehydrated while he was sleeping off the mako.

Once he was recovered, Cloud ran errands for Tifa and Barret, since they were both so adamant about not leaving Marlene's side. Between himself and Denzel, they made sure that Tifa and Barret were eating well enough, that they had contacted all of the appropriate people for things related to their respective jobs, and that they always had enough toothpaste. The two of them, that is Cloud and Denzel, even took the ferry and drove back into Edge to temporarily close down and put deliveries for the bar on hold until Tifa could get back and resume business. 

The hospital ran as many tests on Light as they could safely run without risking the health of the baby. They drew blood, they made her pee in a cup, they fitted her into more machines than she could name or count.

All they found that could possibly be considered 'wrong' with her was easily explained as a hormonal change related to pregnancy. Of course, it might have helped if Light told them what they were looking for, but she wasn't entirely sure, herself. How does one test to find out if one's baby is going to grow up to be a little bundle of angel-of-death? Even if she was sure what test to run, how could she tell them to run it without admitting that she had just fallen prey to some serious black magic?

Despite her worries, she couldn't help but feel relieved that Vincent was at her side through all of it. They had a lot to talk about, a lot to plan for. They'd have to prepare another nursery, not that they had kept any of Hope's old nursery stuff. After eight years, Light hadn't expected to get pregnant again, so she hadn't seen any reason to keep it. She had donated it all – all that hadn't been stained with gross baby fluids, anyway – to a service that helped young mothers get access clothing and diapers and bassinets for their babies. It had felt good, knowing that her donation was going to help someone, but now she wasn't looking forward to shopping for all that stuff again. Vincent reminded her that Tifa would be guaranteed to help her out with all that shopping. Of course he would say that; anything to get himself out of the burden of baby shopping. He was busy with the PTA, so he couldn't possibly spend extra time looking at mobiles and pastel wallpaper.

Hope was still recovering from being Sephiroth's little bargaining hostage, but he was very excited at the prospect of a new brother or sister. He was also quite insistent that if the baby was a boy, he should be named Kengo Tachibana Valentine. Light said she would consider it, but only if the baby turned out to be a boy. If it was a girl then Hope would just have to wait for the next one. Vincent looked at her in alarm, as if to say _there's going to be a 'next' one?_ Light shook her head. Two was enough for her. Any more and she'd have to start growing extra arms to break up the bickering fights she knew would break out between siblings.

Snow suggested that even if it _was_ a girl they should name her Kengo. Light shot daggers at him with her eyes and retorted that maybe they would just name her Snow. It wouldn't be the first time, right? Wasn't Serah's cat actually a girl, despite being named Snow? He laughed and remarked that it would be a very strange day when Light names her kid after him.

"Well, it _has _been a very strange day," Vincent pointed out. "Don't give up hope."

"Maybe I'll just name my own kid Snow, Jr." he replied.

"I thought you weren't having kids," Light said with her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Snow shrugged. "I said it would be weird to have kids with a woman other than Serah, but I mean I could adopt or something, right? It's a win all around."

"You get to be a father, a child gets a loving family, and you don't have to cheat on Serah's memory," Vincent reasoned. "Sounds perfect."

"See?" Snow taunted Light. "Your husband's on my side."

"There are no sides, you big doof," Light taunted back.

"No fighting, you two," Hope ordered in his most authoritative-sounding voice. "Uncle Snow, if this baby is a girl, then you need to adopt a boy and name him Kengo Tachibana."


	6. Epilogue

"Are you really sure you want to sell this place?" Light asked, for the seventh or eighth time that week. She looked around. For the first time since the place was built, the walls were bare of decorations. The tables were all lined up against one wall, their chairs placed on top. Marlene was sweeping, trying to really dig the broom into those hard-to-reach corners.

Tifa stood opposite her, wrapping up glasses and putting them in boxes. "It's time," she answered. "I love 7th Heaven, and I always will, but you know, it's time to move on." She sounded like she was still trying to convince herself.

Light leaned on the bar so she was a little closer. "And you're also really sure that you want to go into the inn business?"

Tifa laughed. "Something wrong with the inn business?"

"Oh I don't know, what if a bunch of adventurers show up, all mangled from some quest that went awry. Are you really going to let them bleed all over your good sheets for a measly three hundred gil?" Light was being serious, but Tifa just laughed again.

"We have hospitals for that now, you know," she reminded her friend.

"Okay, well what if some real weirdo comes to your door?"

"Some weirdo? Like, oh, you, or Vincent, or Cloud, or Snow, or—?"

"Alright I get the idea," Light interrupted.

"I just think it would be nice," Tifa explained. "And, well, Marlene doesn't really want to leave, but she also wants a little bit of independence, both financially, and in terms of what she does all day. With an inn, I can keep running the bar and restaurant side of things, and Marlene can take care of hospitality. She's always been so good at it, you know? This way, she can do what she likes and what she's good at, but she won't be alone doing it. I'll be there, Barret will be there, when he's home from his transport stuff."

"When you put it like that, it really does seem like it's the right thing at the right time," Light conceded. "Still, I am going to miss this place."

Tifa finished packing that box. She passed it to Light, who taped it shut and took a marker to it to designate it as fragile glassware. "What about you, Sis? Are you gonna stay in the moonshine business?"

Light shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. "I'm actually thinking about selling, maybe investing in a winery instead."

"Wine is very in right now," Tifa agreed.

"Vincent also prefers it. It would be a lot easier to get his opinions on things if it's a drink he actually likes. Plus, I don't know, it just sounds more romantic you know? When my kids go to school and their teacher asks them 'What do your parents do for a living?' What sounds better: 'my mom makes moonshine' or 'my mom owns a winery'?"

"Ooh, good point."

"I've already failed Hope in that department, poor kid," Light continued. "Little Nora shouldn't have to go through that disappointment, too?"

"Speaking of which, where is the little angel?" Tifa asked as she began packing the next box, this time with plates and bowls. "She is growing so fast; I can't believe she's already six months old!"

Light beamed her proud mom smile. "It's amazing, right? She's growing much faster than Hope did. He better be careful, or little baby sister will be bigger than him in no time. Anyway, Uncle Snow has her for the afternoon."

"He loves those kids so much."

"And I love him for it," Light sounded genuinely relieved. And she was; she could not be more thrilled that Snow had stepped up and been such a positive force in her kids' lives. Without him, she definitely would not have the time or energy to do things like help Tifa pack up her beloved bar in preparation for moving, or for thinking about the possibility of selling her own place in favor of a winery.

Even if she was going to miss 7th Heaven terribly, Light was still very excited about the location Tifa had been looking at for the new inn. It was a little further out toward the edge of town, to better cater to travelers entering and leaving the city no doubt, but it was a beautiful building with a great layout and lovely sprawling gardens. A garden in Edge was a rare and precious thing indeed, but this inn was growing one in nicely. It would be a beautiful place to host special events as well as receive guests.

While they worked, Tifa went on about her plans for the place. Some of the upstairs rooms needed to be renovated, and the whole place could use a new coat of paint and some general sprucing. She wanted to put thin white curtains on the windows with heavier red drapes and valances. But of course, Tifa's main focus was the kitchen and dining room. Everywhere else in the place, she and Marlene were equal partners with equal say in the design – actually it was more like a sixty-forty split in favor of Marlene, since Tifa had dibs on everything related to the dining area. The point was, Tifa wasn't married to the idea of the red drapes.

"Speaking of married, what's on the horizon for you and Barret?" Light finally asked. She had been dying to know if they were planning on taking any big steps forward now that he had a local home base and he and Tifa finally put the 'partner' label on their relationship.

"Nothing just yet," Tifa admitted. "It's not that I wouldn't like to; if he asked me I'm about ninety-eight percent sure I'd say yes on the spot, and about a hundred percent sure I'd say yes after thinking about it for a few days. But, I don't know, maybe it's not time for that. We haven't really talked about it..."

"Okay, fair enough, but if that changes, I want you to call me right away, okay?" Light insisted. "Even if it's three in the morning, I want you to call me first thing."

Tifa looked stunned. "Why would he propose at three in the morning?"

"He always did have terrible timing," Light reminded her. Tifa laughed.

It was a little weird to think of all the things that had changed in a year. Barret had moved back and was mostly living with Tifa and Marlene when he wasn't on the road. Marlene finished up high school and was taking physical therapy for her prosthetic – she was remarkably chipper and collected about the whole thing, Light had to give her that – and now she and Tifa had plans to open an inn together. Denzel had gone back to work out on the rig and had actually recently been promoted to a supervisory position training new employees. Vincent's activities caused him to rise through the ranks of the PTA to become the general treasurer overseeing all the different booster clubs' funds. It was basically a full-time job, and it cut into his ability to do contract work for Shinra and the Turks, but after what had happened last time he wasn't super eager to go back to work for them anyway. He would _much_ rather work for the school district. Cloud, contrary to everyone's expectations, joined a union for private couriers. Strife Delivery Service was now a proud due-paying member of the local Courier and Freight Workers Union. He was back in business, full-time, had even gotten his own office separate from 7th Heaven.

But it was Snow who had gone for the most unexpected job of all. His centuries in Yusnaan had taught him a thing or two about throwing a great party. Snow Villiers, the man who once ran what amounted to a mercenary group for hunting big game, was now a professional event planner. His personal favorite type of event to do was wedding receptions, and he had built quite a reputation for himself. He might talk like a blue-collar, and he met absolutely none of the stereotypes associated with male event planners, but he could put on the most brilliant sparkling party anyone had ever seen. Marlene was talking about hiring him for event planning when they opened the inn. Snow laughed, joked about her not being able to afford his rates, and she would pout and play the invalid card, despite being perfectly capable of using her prosthetic arm and hand. Snow would claim feel bad about saying no to someone who was so obviously at a disadvantage and agree to do it.

It was a strange turn of events some of their lives had led to, but as Light looked back on it, and on all the steps they had taken to get there, there were very few moments she would trade. She could do without the Sephiroth-kidnapping thing, for one. But other than that, she was hard pressed to think of anything she would change.

As if reading her mind, Tifa asked her a strange question. "Hey, maybe this is weird, but, have you been able to sprout that wing of yours recently?"

Light shook her head. "Nah, not since Nora was born."

Tifa's eyes went wide. "Really? That's weird."

"Maybe not," Light reasoned. "I mean, I only got those powers after Sephiroth jabbed me with that syringe. I think they were always meant for Nora. I was just, I don't know, _borrowing_ them, I guess."

"That's one hell of a loan she gave you," Tifa said after a low, impressed whistle.

"Maybe she knew I was using them to try and save her."

"Smart baby."

"They're always a lot smarter than they look," Light agreed.

"I bet they get that from your side," Tifa teased.

"They get it from Serah, I just know it. It's like I had her kids on accident."

"Don't tell Snow."

"I think he already knows and that's why he loves them so much."

"Too bad they won't grow up to look like him; dream-boat genes like his deserve to get passed on to future generations." A mischievous smirk spread over Tifa's features.

"Please don't tell him you think that. His head is big enough without people calling him 'dream-boat'. I didn't even know people still used 'dream-boat'. What _is_ a dream-boat, anyway? What does a boat have to do with anything?"

They shared a laugh and went back to packing. A lot of progress had been made, but there was a lot more left to do. If they got done in a timely manner, they were thinking about taking a girl's day that weekend to go see the Iliatric Dynamo Crew movie. It had broken opening weekend records and the trailers looked so cool. They should invite Marlene along. She wasn't very familiar with the show, but she was usually up for a little break to go see a summer blockbuster. Plus, she loved hanging out with Tifa and Light, and they loved hanging out with her. Everybody wins.

Light smiled at the thought. It was nice that the only thing on her mind was a movie and labeling boxes. She would never let herself take mundane, everyday life for granted again. The nightmare was over and it was a new day, ladies and gentlemen, and she had every intention of making this one, and every one hereafter, count.


End file.
